BORDERLAND  OF 
PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 


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lyAMES  H.  H YS  LOP 


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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


Class 

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LIBRARY 


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BORDERLAND  OF 
PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 


BORDERLAND 
OF  PSYCHICAL 
RESEARCH 


BY 

JAMES  H.  HYSLOP,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

FORMERLY    PROFB3SOR    OF    ETHICS     AND     LOGIC 
IN     COLUMBIA      UNIVERSITY,     VICE- 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  SOCIETY 
FOR     PSYCHICAL 
RESEARCH 


Author  of 
*♦  Science  avd  a  Future  i^e,"  etc. 


HERBERT  B.  TURNER  &  CO. 
BOSTON         -         -         -         1906 


BFI03/ 
HI 


EDUC. 
Copyright,    1906  PSYCH. 

^V  Herbert  38»  Cumr  &  Co,     '•®^**^ 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 
London 


flEWEflAL 


Published  September,  1906 


COLONIAL  PRESS 

ELBCTKOTYFBD  and    PRINTEf)   BY  C.   H.   SiMONDS  &  Co. 

Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


DEDIOATBD  TO 

fHx*  anH  fUxs.  C|)arlcg  (^rigtocIU  iSotime 

WHOSK  INTEREST  AND  PERSONAL  SAO- 
BIFICES  IN  BEHALF  OF  SCIEN- 
TIFIC TRUTH  DESEBYF. 
THIS    HONOR 


180706 


PREFACE 

The  present  volume  is  not  intended  for  the  sci- 
entific student   of  psychology,  but  for  the  layman 
who  wishes  to  understand  the  difficulties  that  attend 
the  conversion  of  the  more  educated  world  to  the 
more  recondite  problems  of  psjchic  research.    I  have 
here  written  on  the  more  conservative   side  of  the 
genppal  question,  and  so  have  taken  pains  to  show 
why  it  is  necessary  to  be  cautious  about  admitting 
supernormal    phenomena.       The    book    is     devoted 
mainly  to   normal_and_abnormal   psychology,   with 
philosophic  reflections  bearing  upon  the  problems  of 
both.     It  is  intended,  of  course,  that  it  shall  be  help- 
ful to  all  who  sympathize  with  the  present  movement 
to  investigate  the  residual  phenomena  of  mind,  and 
yet  do  not  understand  how  they  may  be  connected 
with  the  accepted  doctrines  of  traditional  knowledge. 
To  the  present  writer  all  new  facts  and  theories  must, 
in  some  way,  find  an  assimilation  with  previous  knowl- 
edge, and  however  great  the  departure  involved  in 
the  discovery  of  the  new,  it  must  have  some  point  of 
contact  with  the  old.     The  present  work,  therefore, 
should  serve  as  a  preparation  for  the  consideration 
of   supernormal   problems,   especially  upon  the   evi- 
dential side.     It  is  not  a  sequel  to  "  Science  and  a 
Future    Life "    and    "  Enigmas    of    Psychical    Re- 
search."   On  the  contrary,  it  rather  leads  up  to  them 
and  may  help  to  aid  the  understanding  of  them  by 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

indicating  what  the  means  of  discrimination  are  be- 
tween the  normal  and  the  abnormal,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  between  both  of  these  and  the  supernormal  on 
the  other. 

I  have  not  tried  in  this  to  make  any  contribution 
to  science.  I  am  not  trying  anything  new  or  sensa- 
tional, but  only  to  aid  a  little  in  the  general  enlight- 
enment of  those  who  are  seeking  some  way  of  an  in- 
telligent understanding  of  the  human  mind  in  its 
less  normal  experiences.  Hence  the  book  must  not  be 
adjudged  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  trained  psy- 
chologist as  an  effort  to  help  scholars,  but  from  the 
standpoint  of  public  education  as  designed  to  do  what 
text-books  can  hardly  undertake.  I  have  been  free 
with  illustrations  and  striking  incidents,  both  as  a 
means  of  exhibiting  the  nature  of  the  problems  of 
psychic  research  and  of  creating  interest  and  intelli- 
gence regarding  them.  If  the  work  avails  to  serve 
any  such  purpose,  I  shall  be  satisfied.  But  it  is  de- 
signed as  a  conservative  treatment  of  very  perplexing 
questions,  and  any  expectations  that  it  will  do  more 
will  mistake  both  its  aim  and  its  usefulness.  It  simply 
touches  upon  problems  which  yet  await  investigation, 
and,  though  it  proceeds  along  the  lines  of  well-estab- 
lished truths,  it  suggests  what  there  may  be  beyond 
them.  James  H.  Hyslop. 

New  York,  May  17,  1906. 


CONTENTS 

OHAPTSB  PAGK 

I.    INTRODUCTION 1 

II.     SENSE -PERCEPTION 15 

III.  INTERPRETING       AND      ASSOCIATING 

FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  MIND      .        .        .43 

IV.  MEMORY         . 70 

V.    DISSOCIATION  AND  OBLIVISCENCE        .     Ill 

VI.    ILLUSIONS .129 

VII.     HALLUCINATIONS 153 

Vm.  PSEUDO- SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA        .     198 

IX.  SUBCONSCIOUS,  ACTION  AND   SECOND- 
ARY PERSONALITY           .        .        .        .246 

X.    MIND  AND  BODY 299 

XL  HYPNOTISM  AND  THERAPEUTICS  .         .     333 

XIL  REINCARNATION          .        :        .         .        .    361 

XIII.    RESERVATIONS  AND  MORALS  .        .    387 

I 


i.^        ..^-n,t 


BORDERLAND  OF  PSYCHICAL 
RESEARCH 

CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

There  are  several  groups  of  mental  phenomena 
which  are  more  or  less  residual,  and  which,  lying  on 
the  borderland  of  both  normal  and  abnormal  psy- 
chology, have  also  both  a  scientific  and  a  popular 
interest.  They  have  been  as  much  neglected  by  the 
one  as  they  have  proved  fascinating  to  the  other  of 
the  two  classes  of  mankind.  It  may  be  unfair  to 
say  that  science  has  neglected  them,  for  there  has 
been  much  attention  given  to  some  of  them  and  little 
to  others.  But  I  mean  by  neglect  of  them  that  the 
attention  to  them,  as  compared  to  that  given  to  nor- 
mal psychology,  has  been  small.  The  popular  mind, 
however,  has  been  interested  in  them  more  than  in 
normal  phenomena,  and  has  been  much  more  deceived 
than  benefited  by  that  interest.  I  refer  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  dreams,  illusions,  hallucinations,  hypnotic 
states,  secondary  personality,  apparitions,  trances, 
and  various  phenomena,  like  reverie,  abstraction,  and 
exaltation,  or  ecstasy.  Dreams,  illusions,  and  hallu- 
cinations in  the  past  have  received  cursory  attention 
by  some  psychologists,  and  more  consideration  from 
psychiatrists,  or  students  of  abnormal  psychology. 
But  by   none   of  them  have  these  phenomena  been 

1 


2       PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

brought  into  the  service  of  normal  psychology.  They 
have  been  the  object  of  curious  reflection,  especially 
dreams,  by  many  men  and  many  ages,  but  instead 
of  being  appropriated  for  better  and  more  intelligent 
views  of  normal  mental  action,  they  have  appeared 
so  exceptional  as  to  fall  outside  the  domain  of  con- 
sideration by  normal  psychology. 

The  reason  for  this  is  very  simple.  The  views 
which  had  separated  them  from  ordinary  interest 
were  due  to  a  reaction  against  the  more  ancient  con- 
ception of  dreams.  We  are  wont  to  suppose  that 
men  naturally  distinguish  between  their  dreams  and 
normal  experiences.  This,  however,  is  not  altogether 
true.  The  ancients  gave  an  external  or  objective 
meaning  to  dreams,  and  savages  still  do  so,  —  a 
meaning  that  associates  them  very  closely  with  normal 
experience.  The  causes  of  this  may  be  the  untu- 
tored neglect  of  ordinary  for  supposedly  significant 
dreams,  and  then  the  consideration  of  only  the  latter, 
as  there  is  some  evidence  that  this  was  the  case. 
It  matters  not  what  the  reason  for  it  was.  The  fact 
is  indisputable  that  to  many  ancient  people  dreams 
were  as  much  testimony  to  external  influences  or 
meaning  as  were  normal  sensory  experiences.  Illu- 
sions and  hallucinations  did  not  altogether  escape  the 
same  interpretation.  It  is  possible  that  the  more 
intelligent  views  of  these  phenomena  among  the  an- 
cients were  not  recorded  as  were  those  of  the  igno- 
rant and  superstitious.  But  this  does  not  alter  the 
impression  that  we  get  of  the  natural  man's  ideas. 

But  when  philosophy  had  gone  far  enough  to  dis- 
tinguish between  what  was  caused  by  the  outside  world 


INTRODUCTION  8 

and  what  was  caused  by  internal  agencies,  a  radical 
distinction  could  be  drawn  between  dreams  and  ordi- 
nary sense-impressions.  It  was  the  psychology  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  middle  ages  that  gave  rise  to 
the  distinction.  The  controversy  between  what  was 
called  Nominalism  and  Realism  resulted  in  the  con- 
clusion that  the  mind  itself  had  something  to  do  with 
some  of  its  phenomena.  Dreams  especially  were  con- 
sidered its  creations,  and  the  view  of  illusions  and  hal- 
lucinations was  affected  by  the  same  theory.  Nom- 
inalism had  shown  that  even  our  normal  experiences 
were  affected  by  the  mind's  own  action,  but  "  common- 
sense  "  philosophy  could  not  accept  this  idealistic 
tendency,  and  in  whatever  way  it  expressed  itself,  it 
referred  normal  sensory  phenomena  to  external  causes 
for  their  explanation  and  remained  by  the  subjective 
view  for  dreams,  illusions,  and  hallucinations.  As 
soon  as  pathology  took  up  the  abnormal,  it  resorted 
to  a  materialistic  explanation  of  it,  and  associated  the 
explanation  of  dreams  with  cerebral  agency  in  a  man- 
ner that  connected  them  with  the  materialistic  theory, 
and  so  separated  their  interest  from  the  spiritualistic 
view  which  had  based  itself  upon  the  normal  and  the 
distinction  between  it  and  the  abnormal. 

It  was  during  the  last  half-century  that  the  interest 
on  both  sides  of  this  controversy  was  awakened. 
Philosophy  and  education,  following  the  preposses- 
sions of  a  civilization  which  had  based  its  views  upon 
the  moral  and  religious  conception  of  Christian  spiri- 
tualism, were  so  occupied  with  normal  human  experi- 
ence that  the  abnormal  appeared  to  offer  no  value 
for  their  problems.     The  influences  which  kept  them 


4      PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

to  this  aspect  of  psychology  need  not  be  detailed, 
but  they  are  all  summarized  in  the  opposition  between 
those  two  schools  of  thought  which  divided  on  the 
question  whether  the  brain  could  account  for  mental 
action,  or  whether  a  soul  was  required  to  explain  it. 
Those  who  thought  the  brain  sufficed  to  explain  men- 
tal phenomena  emphasized  the  abnormal  as  proof  of 
their  view,  since  they  found  that  correlation  between 
cerebral  disturbances  and  abnormal  mental  action 
which  coincided  with  their  view  of  a  purely  physical 
basis  for  them.  The  opposite  school,  appreciating 
the  force  of  their  antagonists'  contention,  emphasized 
the  distinction  between  the  normal  and  the  abnormal, 
and  rested  its  case  upon  retaining  that  position  safe 
from  criticism  and  refutation. 

The  consequence  was  that  all  residual  phenomena 
received  little  attention  in  solving  the  problems  of 
normal  psychology.  When  these  problems  were  lim- 
ited to  the  meaning  of  experience  for  culture  and 
ethics,  that  is,  for  practical  life,  the  distinction  and 
the  evasion  of  the  abnormal  were  justifiable.  It  was 
the  explanation  of  the  two  types  of  phenomena,  their 
ultimate  causal  source,  that  invoked  the  tendency  to 
consider  them  together.  But  whatever  their  explana- 
tion, the  distinction  between  them  had  to  be  main- 
tained for  the  sake  of  their  very  different  relation 
to  our  actions.  The  one  could  be  taken  as  indicative 
of  an  external  world  which  the  other  did  not  represent 
as  it  is.  The  only  reason  for  recognizing  the  abnor- 
mal at  all  in  this  view  was  the  necessity  of  protect- 
ing the  mind  against  delusion.  But  when  science, 
which  is  a  search  for  causes,  substituted  its  investi- 


INTRODUCTION  6 

gations  for  philosophy  and  ethics,  it  discovered  that 
the  explanation  of  both  the  normal  and  the  abnormal 
in  physiology  and  psychology  must  be  the  same: 
when  it  was  found  that  important  humanitarian  meth- 
ods and  results  depended  upon  a  better  knowledge 
of  residual  mental  phenomena,  and  when  it  was  sus- 
pected that  the  more  fundamental  problems  of  normal 
psychology  might  find  a  solution,  as  the  materialist 
thought,  in  the  abnormal,  the  student  of  these  phe- 
nomena, abandoning  his  traditional  prejudices  about 
them,  found  a  new  interest  attaching  to  them,  and 
began  to  investigate  them  in  a  more  scientific  man- 
ner. This,  however,  is  very  recent,  and  we  are  simply 
in  the  dawn  of  that  conception  which  is  to  link  normal 
and  abnormal  psychology  together  for  the  solution  of 
both  scientific  and  metaphysical  problems. 

Let  me  dwell  a  little  longer  on  the  different  inter- 
ests associated  with  these  phenomena,  and  one  might 
say  with  all  phenomena  whatsoever.  There  are  two 
problems  for  human  reflection,  which,  however  closely 
associated,  are  distinct  and  involve  somewhat  different 
methods  for  their  solution.  They  are  the  explanation 
and  value,  or  the  cause  and  the  meaning  of  facts. 
Explanation  endeavors  to  find  how  events  come  to 
take  place;  to  determine  what  it  is  that  originates 
or  causes  them;  to  ascertain  the  conditions  under 
which  they  do  and  will  happen.  In  the  pursuit  of 
this  end  we  do  not  stop  to  distinguish  between  their 
normal  and  abnormal,  regular  and  irregular,  true  or 
false  character.  We  take  them  as  facts,  whatever 
their  character  or  relation  to  practical  matters.  But 
in  considering  their  value  or  meaning  we  are  con- 


6      PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

cemed  with  their  utility  in  our  conduct  and  adjust- 
ment. In  this  suit  we  are  more  interested  in  what  is 
normal,  regular,  true,  as  distinct  from  what  is  abnor- 
mal, irregular,  false.  We  require  to  recognize  and 
understand  the  latter  as  well  as  the  former,  but  it 
is  the  normal  and  regular  that  constitute  the  facts 
which  interest  most  of  our  life  and  conduct.  These 
have  the  most  value  for  our  natural  activities,  and 
it  may  suffice  simply  to  know  what  they  are,  and  the 
distinction  in  kind  from  the  abnormal,  in  order  to 
regulate  our  behavior.  In  fact,  we  do  not  require 
always  that  we  shall  be  able  to  state  the  cause  of 
events,  if  we  know  their  law,  in  order  that  we  may 
adjust  our  conduct  to  the  proper  life.  Hence  the 
ethical  interest  is  primarily  in  the  character  of  phe- 
nomena, whatever  their  causes,  and  will  be  content 
with  ascertaining  their  regularity  or  frequency ;  that 
is,  their  numerical  relation  to  our  natural  and  proper 
development.  On  the  other  hand,  the  scientific  prob- 
lem is  concerned  with  the  causes  of  all  events  without 
regard  to  this  ethical  value  of  a  part  of  them.  It 
may  be  the  primary  condition  of  determining  what 
shall  be  ethical,  and  I  shall  not  enter  into  any  dispute 
against  this  claim,  as  it  is  not  necessary  to  assert 
the  independence  of  the  ethical  and  scientific  view 
of  facts  ill  order  to  retain  the  distinction  between  the 
causes  and  the  character  of  events.  It  simply  hap- 
pens that  we  can  often  ascertain  the  character  and 
value  of  facts  before  we  know  their  explanation,  and 
this  character  may  suffice  to  determine  the  right 
course  of  action  previous  to  our  knowledge  of  causes. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

though  the  discovery  of  the  latter  may  still  further 
fortify  us  in  the  regulation  of  action. 

It  was  the  difference  between  the  scientific  and  the 
ethical  interest  that  kept  the  materialist  and  the  spiri- 
tualist at  odds  with  each  other  so  long  in  the  question 
of  normal  and  abnormal  phenomena.  The  one  was 
seeking  primarily  an  explanation  of  both  types  of 
facts,  and  he  did  not  stop  to  consider  their  relation 
to  the  ideals  which  had  been  founded  on  normal  facts. 
The  moralist  and  spiritualist,  besides  an  interest  in 
the  great  speculative  question  of  a  soul,  which  he  tried 
to  solve  by  the  distinction  between  the  normal  and 
abnormal,  conceding  physiological  influences  in  the 
abnormal,  took  refuge  in  the  ethical  and  practical 
aspect  of  the  phenomena  as  a  justification  of  his 
indifference  to  abnormal  facts.  We  have  arrived, 
however,  at  that  point  in  human  reflection  at  which 
we  can  no  longer  disregard  the  relation  between  nor- 
mal and  abnormal  mental  phenomena  in  the  ethical 
and  philosophical  problem  as  well  as  in  the  scientific. 
However  distinct  the  scientific  and  the  ethical  view  of 
facts  may  be  in  common  life,  the  deeper  and  higher 
view  of  them  will  not  permit  the  discrediting  of  one 
interest  for  the  other.  The  wider  view  of  them  will 
be  conditioned  by  the  explanation,  whatever  imme- 
diate importance  attaches  to  their  practical  aspect. 
This  is  more  particularly  true  of  the  controversy 
waged  between  the  materialistic  and  the  spiritualistic 
theories  as  to  the  causes  of  mental  phenomena.  The 
fact  that  abnormal  mental  phenomena  have  to  be 
considered  as  mental  by  the  man  who  wishes  to  escape 
the  materialistic  interpretation  of  their  source,  while 


8      PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

he  Insists  on  denying  the  materialistic  theory,  places 
him  in  an  embarrassing  position,  as  he  has  to  admit 
a  character  for  them  which  shows  that  he  may  not 
have  the  right  to  base  the  integrity  of  his  spiritual- 
istic view  upon  the  distinction  between  the  normal 
and  the  abnormal.  If  abnormal  mental  phenomena 
could  be  characterized  as  purely  physical  in  nature, 
like  supposed  molecular  action  of  the  nervous  system, 
the  matter  might  be  different,  as  long  as  it  was  in- 
sisted that  normal  mental  phenomena  were  not  me- 
chanical or  molecular.  But  the  moment  that  the  two 
types  of  phenomena  were  considered  as  mental  in 
nature,  whatever  consistency  the  distinction  between 
them  has  with  the  spiritualistic  theory,  the  way  was 
open  for  the  materialist  to  urge  the  simplicity  of 
their  explanation,  and,  finding  that  cerebral  influ- 
ences were  conceded  for  the  abnormal,  he  could  hardly 
be  blamed  for  advocating  a  similar  explanation  for 
the  normal.  In  that  process  of  unifying  the  causes 
of  mental  phenomena,  materialism  found  its  advance, 
and  the  consequence  was  to  make  the  causal  inter- 
pretation of  mental  phenomena  prior  to  the  deter- 
mination of  their  ethical  valuation.  In  this  way,  nor- 
mal and  abnormal  psychology  are  brought  together 
in  mutual  service,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
they  may  sustain  the  same  relation  to  each  other 
that  pathology  has  to  physiology  and  medicine. 
Pathology,  which  is  the  study  of  the  abnormal  in 
physiology,  revolutionized  medicine,  and  in  the  same 
way  psychopathology  may  revolutionize  our  ordinary 
and  normal  psychology,  or,  if  not  revolutionize  it, 


INTRODUCTION  9 

may  solve  its  problems  where  it  was  supposed  to 
destroy  them. 

For  this  reason  I  propose  to  introduce  the  study 
of  some  abnormal  phenomena  by  a  brief  considera- 
tion of  the  fundamental  processes  of  normal  psy- 
chology, assuming  that  the  same  laws  govern  both 
fields  of  mental  events.  We  shall  be  better  prepared 
in  this  way  to  understand  the  deviations  from  the 
normal  which  we  find  in  dreams,  illusions,  and  hal- 
lucinations. We  may  admit  all  the  extraneous  causes 
we  please  into  the  case;  that  is,  causes  extraneous  to 
those  affecting  the  normal  field;  we  do  not  in  that 
fact  discredit  the  identity  of  the  laws  which  govern 
the  nature  and  contents  of  the  abnormal  as  mental 
phenomena.  This  will  be  apparent  when  we  come 
to  consider  the  matter  in  detail.  Here  I  can  only 
announce  my  intention  as  a  reason  for  outlining  the 
Wrmal  laws  of  mental  action. 

It  was  as  a  practical  means  of  studying  and  curing 
insanity  that  attention  was  called  to  the  importance 
of  abnormal  psychology.  Of  course  the  scientific 
interest  was  awakened  in  the  clinic  and  the  asylum, 
and  brain  physiology  appropriated  the  significance 
of  the  facts  to  its  own  purposes.  But  it  was  not 
long  before  the  discovery  was  made  that  they  were 
usable  in  the  diagnosis  of  disease  within  the  limits  of 
mental  disturbance.  Then  came  an  interest  in  hyp- 
notic suggestion  which  reflected  something  like  a 
causal  relation  of  mental  states  to  organic,  and  this 
was  followed  by  phenomena  which  apparently  suggest 
a  causal  nexus  between  mental  states  themselves  par- 
allel  with   the    causal    connection   between    different 


10    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

physical  phenomena  on  the  one  hand  and  between 
physical  and  mental  phenomena  on  the  other.  I  shall 
not  stand  for  a  theory  of  causal  nexus  between  dif- 
ferent mental  phenomena,  as  something  to  be  sought 
for  with  perfect  confidence.  But  the  appearance  of 
some  causal  agency  of  mental  upon  organic  opera- 
tions indicates  that  its  nature  is  open  to  investiga- 
tion and  use.  It  seems  so  well  assured  that  it  is  but 
a  matter  of  larger  and  more  accurate  observations 
to  determine  the  nature  and  limits  of  its  application. 
But  it  is  not  so  clear  that  any  causal  nexus  exists 
between  different  mental  states  analogous  to  that 
between  physical  events.  The  suspicion  or  supposi- 
tion of  it  is  not  so  well  supported  as  the  influence 
of  mental  states  upon  the  organism.  But  if  it  be  a 
fact,  or  if  there  be  reason  to  suspect  it,  this  alone 
makes  inquiry  necessary.  But  the  first  step  in  any 
such  investigation  is  to  determine  the  relation  between 
normal  and  abnormal  mental  states  as  connected  with 
mental  laws,  and  then  to  push  further  investigations 
as  the  phenomena  demand  them. 

The  physiological  question  may  be  held  in  abey- 
ance. I  mean  the  problem  of  organic  explanation 
of  mental  phenomena.  In  the  study  of  both  normal 
and  abnormal  mental  phenomena  we  are  first  inter- 
ested in  the  coexistences  and  sequences  of  the  phe- 
nomena themselves,  and  the  question  of  their  ultimate 
causality  may  be  postponed.  No  doubt  the  study 
of  causes  must  at  last  land  us  in  the  organic  basis 
for  their  occurrence  as  we  know  them;  for  the  body 
is  the  last  fact  in  the  series  which  we  find  connected 
with  mental  phenomena.     It  unquestionably  has  some 


INTRODUCTION  11 

causal  relations  to  the  facts.  But  there  are  additional 
questions  to  be  settled  which  have  to  be  determined 
before  any  final  opportunity  can  be  offered  for  deter- 
mining the  physiological  problem.  There  are  laws 
and  associations  which  have  to  be  studied  before  the 
autopsy  is  possible  or  before  the  dissecting-room 
can  disclose  any  secrets.  It  is  this  course  that  is 
open  to  psychology  before  physiology  can  even  ap- 
proach its  problem.  The  psychological  meaning  and 
connections  of  mental  phenomena  may  be  ascertained 
without  waiting  for  the  scalpel  and  physiological 
methods,  and  experience  has  shown  that  much  can 
be  determined  which  cannot  be  effected  by  physiolog- 
ical methods.  The  application  of  suggestion,  normal 
and  hypnotic,  to  therapeutics,  though  we  know  very 
little  about  it,  nothing  physiologically,  is  the  most 
striking  illustration  and  proof  of  this  contention. 
The  same  thing  is  apparent  in  all  education  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  even  in  ordinary  medical  practice, 
where  the  physician  relies  quite  as  much  on  the  influ- 
ence of  the  patient's  mind  as  he  does  on  the  use 
of  medicine.  He  has  consciously  or  unconsciously 
learned  that  mental  balance,  or  perhaps  better,  the 
healthy  mental  state,  is  often  necessary  to  the  utility 
of  therapeutic  agents  of  a  physical  kind.  Besides, 
there  are  all  sorts  of  systematic  relations  and  laws 
for  mental  phenomena  that  can  be  known  only  inde- 
pendently of  physiological  procedure.  No  amount 
of  physiological  investigation  will  throw  any  light 
upon  the  order  of  mental  events  or  their  contents. 
These  have  to  be  ascertained  precisely  in  the  way 
we  ascertain  the  order  of  physical  events,  and,  if 


12    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

metaphysical  explanations  are  to  be  disregarded,  as 
the  phenomenalist  always  tells  us,  we  do  not  require 
more  than  the  determination  of  the  regularity  and 
irregularity  of  phenomena  to  satisfy  our  curiosity. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  nature 
and  importance  of  many  of  them  are  determined 
before  their  cause  is  known.  Hence,  while  no  abate- 
ment of  physiological  study  need  be  encouraged,  and 
without  disparaging  its  right  to  insist  upon  an  or- 
ganic basis  for  consciousness  as  sensibly  manifested, 
there  may  first  be  that  investigation  of  the  uniformi- 
ties of  coexistence  and  sequence  in  mental  events 
which  makes  physiological  investigation  interesting 
and  important,  and  which  will  justify  the  assumption 
that  residual  mental  phenomena  have  the  same  ex- 
planation as  the  normal.  If  we  cannot  connect  the 
two  types  of  facts,  we  cannot  remove  the  conviction 
that  the  abnormal  are  so  anomalous  in  character  as 
to  forfeit  classification  as  mental.  This  must  be 
settled  before  physiology  attacks  the  issue.  The 
consequence  is  that  such  study  as  will  here  be  under- 
taken of  the  abnormal  must  be  only  that  which  deter- 
mines its  relation  to  the  normal,  and  physiological 
theories  may  have  a  free  field.  In  order  to  under- 
stand modern  id^as  on  the  matter,  however,  it  may 
be  necessary  to  outline  the  established  conclusions 
of  neurology,  but  I  shall  do  nothing  more,  and  shall 
not  attempt  to  contravene  any  theory  of  the  rela- 
tion between  the  mind  and  the  brain  which  physiology 
may  defend. 

There  is  a  class  of  phenomena  that  is  specially 
qualified  to  throw  light  on  the  relation  between  normal 


INTRODUCTION  13 

and  abnormal  psjchology,  as  they  probably  lie  on  the 
border-line  between  them  both.  I  refer  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  secondary  personality,  I  shall  define  and 
discuss  these  at  length  in  a  separate  chapter,  and 
hence  I  only  refer  to  them  here  for  the  purpose  of 
indicating  what  I  believe  to  be  very  important  for 
bridging  the  wide  chasm  between  normal  and  abnor- 
mal phenomena  in  their  clearer  manifestations.  Sec- 
ondary personality  is  not  an  abnormal  phenomenon 
that  suggests  insanity  of  any  such  type  as  requires 
treatment,  and  as  it  is  so  common  a  phenomenon 
in  those  whose  whole  lives  seem  to  be  perfectly  nor- 
mal, we  may  even  raise  the  question  whether  it  is 
anything  but  a  normal  fact.  I  am  not  concerned 
at  present  with  the  solution  of  this  problem,  but  only 
with  the  general  fact  that,  being  a  name  for  subcon- 
scious phenomena  that  cannot  be  directly  known  by 
the  normal  consciousness,  it  defines  a  class  of  facts 
which  are  important  for  various  interests  affecting 
the  problems  related  to  the  claims  of  the  supernormal 
and  especially  for  limiting  those  claims  to  some  rea- 
sonable field  of  application.  In  any  case,  it  defines 
a  group  of  phenomena  having  a  very  great  impor- 
tance for  the  present  problems  of  psychology,  and 
must  here  receive  an  attention  commensurate  with 
that  importance. 

Secondary  personality,  however,  must  be  preceded 
by  the  investigation  of  illusions,  not  because  there 
is  any  connection  whatever  between  illusions  and  sec- 
ondary personality,  but  because  illusions  are  so  def- 
initely related  to  normal  mental  states  that,  what- 
ever suggestion  of  the  abnormal  they  may  contain, 


14    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

they  are  a  departure  from  the  normal  in  a  much  less 
degree  than  subliminal  phenomena.  Hallucinations 
will  follow  illusions  because  they  represent  phenomena 
nearer  subconscious  action  than  illusions.  They  may 
even  merge  into  those  of  secondary  personality,  at 
least  of  a  certain  type,  and  so  afford  another  link  in 
the  connection  between  one  extreme  of  the  normal 
and  the  other  extreme  of  the  abnormal.  These  con- 
siderations have  influenced  the  choice  of  order  in  the 
discussion  of  the  various  topics. 

With  the  view  of  studying  the  abnormal  in  the 
light  of  the  mental  laws  which  regulate  normal  ac- 
tion of  the  mind,  and  also  of  analyzing  those  laws 
more  clearly,  I  have  resolved  to  introduce  the  dis- 
cussions of  this  work  by  a  brief  statement  of  the 
fundamental  processes  by  which  all  our  knowledge  is 
gained  and  the  circumstances  which  give  rise  to  the 
problems  suggested  in  abnormal  psychology.  I  there- 
fore begin  with  the  problem  of  sense-perception,  and 
follow  it  with  that  of  the  interpreting  functions  of 
the  mind.  In  these  we  shall  provide  ourselves  with 
the  criteria  which  the  scientific  student  uses  for  mak- 
ing phenomena  intelligible  and  testing  their  claims  to 
any  particular  character.  The  examination  of  mem- 
ory will  follow  these  two  fields  of  elementary  proc- 
esses, and  provision  will  be  made  for  the  problems 
that  are  apparent  in  certain  phenomena  of  secondary 
personality  and  illusions  of  memory.  In  these  three 
chapters  the  foundations  will  be  laid  for  a  better 
understanding  of  the  skeptical  attitude  which  scien- 
tific psychology  takes  toward  much  that  claims  to 
transcend  ordinary  knowledge. 


CHAPTER   II 


SENSE  -  PEECEPTION 


In  the  study  of  exceptional  and  residual  phenom- 
ena, it  is  always  necessary  to  have  some  standard  by 
which  to  measure  them  and  to  make  them  intelligible, 
and,  unless  they  in  some  way  embody  the  same  gen- 
eral laws  and  functions,  they  must  forever  remain 
outside  the  ken  of  the  understanding.  The  slightest 
examination  of  many  abnormal  phenomena  reveals 
the  action  of  familiar  laws  and  causes,  and  suggests 
that,  if  these  exceptional  and  residual  facts  were  bet- 
ter known,  they  would  exhibit  less  mystery,  though 
they  remain  just  as  exceptional  as  before.  To  ascer- 
tain the  extent  to  which  this  is  true,  and  to  which 
we  may  apply  the  interpretations  of  normal  mental 
phenomena  to  the  abnormal  as  simply  disturbances 
in  the  action  of  very  complex  functions,  we  must  go 
to  the  study  of  our  normal  mental  processes,  where 
much  the  largest  part  of  our  average  experience  is 
found.  We  shall  then  better  understand  the  real  and 
apparent  variations  from  these  normal  occurrences, 
and  the  reluctance  with  which  the  scientific  mind  ac- 
cepts any  such  deviation  from  them  as  is  implied  in 
supernormal  phenomena.  For  this  reason  I  shall 
devote  a  little  time  to  the  analysis  and  interpreting 
of  the  elementary  processes  of  knowledge,  as  pre- 
sented in  our  normal  experience.     I  begin  with  sen- 

16 


16    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

sation  and  perception,  which  represent  the  first  stages 
of  our  knowledge. 

The  senses  are  the  channels  through  which  comes 
our  knowledge  of  the  external  world.  I  do  not  here 
say  or  imply  that  this  knowledge  is  correct,  or  that 
we  form  from  it  immediately  right  conceptions  of 
this  external  world,  but  that,  in  some  way,  we  obtain 
it  through  sensory  experience.  Whatever  its  nature, 
it  would  not  be  normally  acquired  in  any  other  way, 
and  hence  sense-perception  confines  our  knowledge 
of  external  things  to  sense-impressions.  There  is 
no  proposition  of  psychology  on  which  men  are  more 
agreed  than  on  this.  They  may  dispute  about  the 
nature  of  our  knowledge,  about  the  nature  of  matter, 
and  about  the  limits  of  sensory  experience,  of  its  con- 
tents and  of  its  certitude ;  but  they  are  agreed  that 
we  can  have  such  knowledge  as  we  do  possess  only 
through  the  agency  of  sense-perception,  and  that 
this  agency  consists  of  the  organs  or  media  repre- 
sented by  the  senses.  Now  how  do  the  senses  give  us 
this  knowledge.?  The  answer  for  the  layman  is  that 
we  get  it  by  sensations.  But  what  are  sensations, 
and  what  do  we  "  know  "  as  a  result  of  them? 

The  answer  to  this  question  also  seems  very  simple. 
We  are  accustomed  to  have  it  said  that  sensations 
are  the  mental  states  by  which  we  get  our  knowledge 
of  the  material  world.  Here,  then,  we  are  going 
round  in  a  circle  and  make  no  progress  with  the 
problem.  The  means  of  getting  external  knowledge 
is  sensations,  and  sensations  are  the  means  of  getting 
our  external  knowledge,  and  we  are  just  where  we 
started.     But  the  curious  mind  will  not  stop  with 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  1*7 

any  such  answers,  and  insists  on  a  more  thorough 
description  of  the  process,  especially  as  man's  experi- 
ence has  revealed  to  him  a  large  number  of  illusions 
and  errors  of  judgment  associated  with  his  sensa- 
tions, a  fact  which  has  suggested  to  many  the  ques- 
tion whether  we  know  anything  at  all  independently 
of  our  mental  states.  That  is,  they  would  say  we  can 
know  only  the  states  themselves.  Illusion  and  error 
seem  to  have  the  same  source  as  our  assumed  truth. 
This  creates  a  problem  for  us  which  is  how  to  know 
when  we  can  accept  sensory  deliverances  and  when 
we  can  disregard  them.  We  require  some  criterion 
by  which  to  distinguish  one  type  from  another  and 
to  determine  the  nature  and  limits  of  sense-experi- 
ence. The  need  of  discriminating  between  his  normal 
sensations  and  his  dreams,  for  instance,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  between  his  sensations  and  his  inferences 
on  the  other,  forces  man  into  a  most  careful  study 
and  definition  of  his  elementary  mental  states.  His 
first  aim,  therefore,  is  a  theory  of  how  his  sensations 
occur  and  what  they  mean.  The  hope,  in  thus  study- 
ing them,  is  to  find  the  laws  which  determine  or  reg- 
ulate the  order  of  both  the  normal  and  the  abnormal 
states  associated  with  sensory  functions.  Their  su- 
perficial resemblances  are  clear,  and  the  conviction 
of  an  external  reality  in  one  and  of  illusion  in  the 
other  is  as  tenacious  as  their  apparent  identity  is 
clear.  Consequently,  investigation  of  some  kind  is 
rendered  necessary  for  understanding  the  meaning 
of  all  of  them  and  for  distinguishing  the  one  type 
from  the  other. 

An  ancient  Greek  philosophy  formed  a  very  simple 


18    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

theory  of  sense-knowledge,  which  probably  represents 
the  most  natural  conception  of  the  untrained  mind 
when  it  is  called  on  to  explain  how  sensation  can  take 
place.  The  majority  of  lay  minds  probably  do  not 
imagine  that  there  is  any  problem  in  the  matter,  but 
simply  take  sensations  for  granted  as  facts  which, 
whatever  their  explanation,  are  not  particularly  mys- 
terious. But  when  asked  to  treat  them  as  puzzling 
phenomena  they  will  probably  give  a  naive  explana- 
tion of  them.  Such  was  the  theory  of  Empedocles 
and  Democritus,  the  ancient  Greeks,  to  whom  I  have 
just  referred.  Their  view,  while  it  was  a  tacit  ex- 
planation of  sensation,  was  less  such  than  it  was  a 
theory  of  knowledge  aimed  to  give  an  intelligible 
account  of  how  we  came  to  know  an  external  world 
of  matter.  Democritus  thought  that  objects  threw 
off  little  eidola,  or  images  of  themselves,  corpwscvla, 
as  they  were  also  called  when  the  doctrine  was  trans- 
lated into  Latin,  and  that  these  little  bodies,  simulacra 
of  the  objects  themselves,  impinged  upon  the  soul, 
or  sensorium,  as  we  should  say,  and  in  this  manner 
we  came  to  know  these  external  objects  which  threw 
off  such  images.  This  view  was  tantamount  to  saying 
that  the  reason  that  we  could  know  objects  was  that 
they  succeeded  in  impressing  upon  us  some  simulacra 
of  themselves,  and,  of  course,  if  our  sensations  were 
only  impressions  like  objects,  it  would  be  natural  to 
feel  that  there  was  nothing  puzzling  about  our  see- 
ing them  or  knowing  them.  They  were  there,  one 
and  the  same  in  kind,  with  the  knowing  process  and 
the  known  object. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  this  naive  view  was 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  19 

modified.  It  took  but  little  skeptical  reflection  to 
discover  that  there  was  no  sense-evidence  for  the 
flight  of  these  eidola,  or  images,  and  for  their  im- 
pingement on  the  soul.  Such  a  theory  might  seem 
possible  on  certain  assumptions,  and  might  conform 
to  some  speculative  demand  to  bridge  the  chasm 
between  the  sensorium  and  objects  at  a  distance;  but 
the  theory  wanted  the  necessary  evidence  for  its  truth 
to  the  very  senses  under  consideration,  and  so  had 
to  succumb  to  a  view  which  was  not  so  easily  attacked, 
even  though  the  corpuscular  theory  might  have  been 
refined  to  suit  the  situation. 

Hence  the  view  of  sense-knowledge  which  followed 
the  corpuscular  theory  of  Empedocles  and  Democri- 
tus  was  that  obj  ects  set  up  some  motion  between  them- 
selves and  our  senses,  and  that  the  immediate  stim- 
ulus or  cause  of  sensations  was  this  motion,  and  in 
connection  with  this  stimulus  our  perceptive  knowl- 
edge arose.  This  view  dispensed  with  the  difficulties 
of  the  corpuscular  theory,  and  permitted  objects  to 
retain  their  bodily  integrity  while  the  idea  of  con- 
tact could  still  remain  to  explain  the  occurrence  of 
knowledge.  Action  at  a  distance  was  regarded  as 
inconceivable,  and  hence  the  theory  of  Democritus, 
which  assumed  that  contact  and  similarity  of  the 
sense-impression  to  the  object  were  necessary  to 
perception.  But  the  idea  of  corpuscular  emanations 
soon  became  as  absurd  as  action  at  a  distance,  and 
to  save  the  situation,  the  conception  of  motion,  inter- 
vening between  things  and  sense,  was  substituted  for 
that  of  corpuscular  impressions,  and  the  assumption 
of  contact  was  preserved,  while  that  of  flying  eidola 


20     PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

was  abandoned.  The  theory  of  motion  has  survived 
ever  since  its  assumption. 

This  view  serves  very  well  for  sight  and  hearing, 
where  we  have  come  to  think,  whether  rightly  or 
wrongly  it  is  not  necessary  to  say,  that  there  is  an 
interval  of  space  between  the  object  and  the  senso- 
rium,  and  that  the  light  and  sound  which  are  their 
respective  stimuli  are  motional  or  undulatory  in  na- 
ture. But  antiquity  had  no  scientific  knowledge  of 
light  and  sound  to  substantiate  its  speculations,  hence 
its  only  guide  was  the  anomaly  of  action  at  a  distance, 
which  it  overcame  by  the  supposition  of  eidola  or 
motion.  In  accepting  motion  instead  of  corpuscular 
impressions,  it  gave  up  contact  of  the  object  with  the 
sense  affected  and  assumed  some  sort  of  influence 
conveyed  across  the  interval  of  space  admitted  to 
intervene  between  object  and  sensorium.  This  con- 
ception, however,  was  not  necessary,  even  if  true,  in 
the  casfe  of  touch.  Here  the  object  was  supposed  to 
be  in  contact  with  the  organism  aff^ected.  It  was  not 
necessary  to  invoke  motion  from  the  object  to  the 
sensorium.  Hence  the  analogy  here  was  that  of  the 
seal  or  stamp  on  wax,  the  seal  corresponding  to  the 
stimulus  and  the  wax  to  the  sensorium.  In  this  view 
the  conception  was  much  the  same  as  that  of  Em- 
pedocles  and  Democritus,  except  that  the  assumption 
of  eidola  was  unnecessary. 

It  is  probable  that  Aristotle  was  better  satisfied 
with  this  analogy  than  with  that  of  motion  or  of 
the  corpuscula.  For  he  compared  all  sensation  to  the 
impression  of  a  seal  on  wax.  Both  views  had  the 
common  conception  that  objects  acted  on  sense,  but 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  21 

they  did  not  agree  upon  the  manner  of  this  causal 
action  or  upon  the  conditions  under  which  sensations 
occurred.  Each  view  had  its  own  perplexities,  but 
it  is  curious  to  remark  that  the  theories  adopted 
assumed  a  point  of  view  which  did  not  cover  the  whole 
field  of  sensation.  One  formed  its  theories  upon  the 
senses  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  the  other  upon  that 
of  touch.  In  one,  space  intervened  between  sense 
and  the  object,  and  this  chasm  had  to  be  spanned, 
and  in  the  other  space  did  not  intervene;  contact 
was  the  condition  of  the  case.  Neither  the  flight  of 
eidola  nor  the  transmission  of  motion  satisfied  the 
terms  of  both  situations,  hence  the  separate  schools 
had  to  choose  one  sense  as  the  functional  type  and 
ignore  the  perplexities  proposed  by  the  unity  of 
sensory  experience.  This  is  still  a  problem  for  us, 
though  we  have  probably  decided  for  undulatory 
stimuli  for  sight  and  hearing. 

It  is  probable  that  the  uncritical  mind  does  not 
feel  any  perplexities  in  the  case.  In  our  normal  and 
unreflective  experience  we  probably  do  not  incline 
to  ask  how  we  come  to  know  things.  We  are  so 
familiar  with  our  sense-experiences  that  we  are  sat- 
isfied to  say  that  we  see  objects,  that  we  hear  them, 
that  we  touch  them,  that  we  taste  them,  that  we  smell 
them,  etc.  We  do  not  have  any  theory  about  sensa- 
tion. We  take  the  perception  of  external  objects 
as  a  matter  of  course.  We  do  not  think  of  them 
as  causing  sensations.  We  do  not  even  think  of 
causal  action  at  all.  It  is  enough  to  think  that  ob- 
jects are  there,  and  that  we  perceive  them.  We 
admit  "  sensations  "  in  touch,  but  never  think  of  them 


c 


22    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

in  sight  and  hearing  until  philosophic  reflection  drives 
us  into  it.  The  very  fact  that  we  can  give  no  intel- 
ligible account  of  the  manner  in  which  we  can  see 
or  hear  objects  at  a  distance,  the  fact,  indeed,  not 
involving  any  conscious  problem  for  us,  makes  us 
satisfied  with  the  mere  perception  of  them;  hence 
we  do  not  think  of  our  knowledge  as  an  effect  like 
the  passive  result  of  a  cause.  We  distinguish  radi- 
cally between  our  tactual  experience  or  "  sensation  " 
and  our  visual  and  auditory  perceptions.  We  may 
come  to  think  of  the  two  different  agencies  of  knowl- 
edge, or  all  of  them  in  the  physiological  field,  as 
senses,  but  we  do  not  confuse  their  action.  We  may 
readily  distinguish  in  the  one  between  the  object 
and  the  sensation,  namely,  in  touch,  though  this  is 
an  unconscious  admission  of  conceptions  from  an- 
N  other  sense,  but  in  the  others,  namely,  sight  and 
Ajienring,  we  have  no  "  sensations,"  or  are  not  aware 
of  any  such  thing  as  we  conceive  the  term  in  refer- 
ence to  touch.  We  simply  perceive  the  object  in 
touch,  and  this  without  any  direct  knowledge  of  in- 
termediate causal  influences.  We  do  not  pretend  to 
give  any  philosophic  reasons  for  considering  that  all 
sensations  are  essentially  the  same  in  kind  when  classi- 
fying them  as  if  they  were,  and  so  feel  no  perplexi- 
ties that  assume  an  anomalous  difference  between 
touch  and  sight  and  hearing. 

This  was  probably  the  general  state  of  mind  after 
the  decline  of  Greek  philosophy  and  until  modern 
times.  But  at  the  first  awakening  of  scientific  reflec- 
tion, men  began  to  study  the  perplexities  of  sense- 
perception,  and,  though  they  did  not  return  to  the 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  23 

naive  views  of  Empedocles  and  Democritus,  with  their 
supposition  of  eidola  or  corpuscular  emanations  from 
objects  impinging  on  the  organism,  or  to  the  equally 
unsatisfactory  comparison  of  Aristotle,  namely,  that 
of  the  seal  and  wax,  they  did  apply  the  theory  of 
vibrations  and  motion  in  some  of  the  senses  and  the 
idea  of  causal  agency  in  all  of  them,  but  they  left 
unsolved  the  apparent  anomaly  between  touch  and 
sight  and  hearing.  Their  wider  view  of  connection 
was  that  of  causal  agency,  which  was  more  abstract 
and  intangible  than  the  ancient  attempts  to  unify 
sense-perception  by  ignoring  the  anomaly  mentioned, 
though,  in  fact,  this  general  assumption  of  causal 
agency  quite  as  much  ignored  the  real  perplexity 
as  did  the  Greeks  when  they  chose  one  sense  as  the 
measure  of  external  knowledge  and  disregarded  the 
others.  However  this  may  be,  men  began  to  look  at 
sensation  and  sense-perception  as  an  effect  to  be  pri- 
marily accounted  for  by  the  causal  action  of  objects 
on  the  sensorium,  and  the  unique  character  of  this 
effect  as  an  activity  of  the  mental  or  cerebral  sub- 
ject was  either  unknown  or  neglected  for  the  time, 
or  at  least  was  subordinated  to  the  causal  action  of 
objects,  until  idealism  came  forward  to  emphasize 
the  internal  or  subjective  factor  of  knowledge.  Of 
this  again,  as  I  am  not  at  present  concerned  with 
that  movement  which  began  to  surmise  or  assert  a 
larger  number  of  intermediate  steps  in  knowledge, 
though  it  was  in  fact  an  attempt  to  eradicate  the 
anomaly  which  had  perplexed  both  Greeks  and  later 
philosophers  in  the  relations  between  the  different 
senses.    I  shall  have  to  approach  that  attempted  solu- 


24     PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

tion  of  the  problem  through  the  anomaly  itself  and 
the  substitution  of  the  conception  of  causality  for 
the  supposed  essential  identity  of  different  sensa- 
tions. This  conception  of  causality  was  the  general 
one  at  the  basis  of  the  assumed  contact  of  touch  and 
of  motion  or  vibration  for  sight  and  hearing.  It 
was  an  interesting  scientific  circumstance  that  gave 
them  the  first  place  in  psychological  theories  of  sense- 
perception. 

The  application  of  motion  to  the  phenomena  of 
sensation  and  perception  in  sight  and  hearing  was 
demonstrated  by  the  physical  discovery  that  light 
and  sound  were  undulatory  and  not  corpuscular  in 
their  nature.  For  a  long  time  light  was  supposed 
to  consist  of  minute  corpuscles  thrown  off  from  radi- 
ant matter.  But  finally  certain  phenomena  seemed 
J  to  prove  that  it  was  some  form  of  undulatory  or 
vibratory  motion  of  the  ether,  and  soon  it  was  proved 
that  sound  was  also  due  to  undulations  or  wavelike 
vibrations  in  the  air  or  other  matter.  These  discov- 
eries at  once  revived  the  older  theory  of  sense-percep- 
tion in  the  sensations  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  per- 
haps all  other  sensations  were  affected  by  this  assump- 
tion of  undulatory  stimuli.  However  this  may  be, 
the  doctrine  of  intermediate  causal  action  between 
objects  and  sensations  in  these  two  cases  has  taken  a 
fixed  place  in  psychology  and  philosophy,  and  sug- 
gests that  we  must  reckon  with  its  conceptions  in 
the  other  senses  when  accepting  their  general  iden- 
tity with  sight  and  hearing. 

The  naive  view  of  the  man  who  does  not  reflect 
upon  the  various   steps  involved  in   our  knowledge 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  25 

of  external  objects  naturally  assumes,  as  I  have  al- 
ready said,  that  there  are  no  mediating  influences 
in  the  phenomena.  This  view  is  favored  by  our 
natural  ignorance  of  what  those  intervening  causes 
are.  As  the  undulations  of  light  and  sound  are  not 
immediately  known  by  him,  they  are  ignored  in  his 
judgment  of  reality  until  investigation  discovers 
indirectly  that  they  are  there.  Hence  we  naturally 
assume  that  the  object  of  perception  is  indirectly 
known  when  these  intermediate  influences  are  known 
to  exist,  and  at  the  same  time  that  we  come  to  this 
view,  we  often  or  always  retain  the  conception  of  these 
objects  which  characterized  our  ideas  before  we  sus- 
pected an  indirect  knowledge  of  them.  With  many 
reflective  minds  this  system  of  intervening  agencies 
between  objects  and  sensation  suggests  a  theory 
which  conceives  objects  as  "  mental  constructs,"  that 
is,  products  of  the  mind  or  brain  upon  which  the 
motion  or  vibrations  act.  Of  this  view  presently. 
But  with  the  majority  of  men  who  do  not  reflect 
upon  it,  the  object  remains  the  same  in  their  con- 
ception of  it  after  the  explanation  of  perception  and 
sensation  by  intermediate  agencies  as  it  had  appeared 
before,  and  their  minds  may  feel  puzzled  to  account 
for  a  phenomenon  which  is  mediate  instead  of  im- 
mediate. But  puzzled  or  not,  earlier  habits  prevail 
to  protect  conceptions  which  the  facts  ought  to  mod- 
ify, and  the  problem  of  sensation  and  perception 
takes  on  a  complicated  form  for  the  man  who  wants 
to  insist  upon  the  retention  of  his  earlier  ideas  while 
he  admits  the  existence  of  causal  agencies  not  iden- 
tical with  the  objects  known,   and  admits  them   in 


26    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

deference  to  the  assumption  that  causal  action  can 
never  occur  at  a  distance.  Confined  to  this  maxim, 
and  not  being  able  to  suppose,  as  he  might  do,  that, 
however  causality  requires  contact  for  its  effects, 
knowledge  might  not  require  this  for  its  judgments, 
he  feels  an  embarrassment  in  his  problem  which  prac- 
tical life  does  not  experience,  and  he  remains  between 
the  acceptance  of  his  natural  conceptions  and  skepti- 
cal influence  of  scientific  facts  about  intermediate 
agencies  in  his  view  of  sense-perception. 

But  the  discovery  of  these  intermediate  agencies 
and  their  causal  influence,  such  as  vibrations  trans- 
mitted from  objects  to  the  organism,  gives  rise  to 
inquiry  about  what  goes  on  in  the  organism  itself. 
If  we  do  not  perceive  objects  without  motional  agen- 
cies intervening  between  them  and  the  senses,  and 
if  these  agencies  are  different  from  the  objects,  we 
may  begin  to  suspect  that  there  may  be  as  much 
difference  between  what  takes  place  in  the  organism 
after  the  action  of  stimulus  as  we  assume  exists  be- 
tween the  object  and  the  undulations  which  it  radi- 
ates. When  we  get  into  this  state  of  mind  we  must 
be  prepared  for  almost  anything. 

Right  at  this  stage  of  reflection  an  important  cir- 
cumstance occurs.  Many  of  the  sensations,  espe- 
cially those  of  touch,  seem  to  occur  at  the  periphery 
of  the  organism,  that  is,  on  the  external  area  of  the 
body  presumably  affected,  while  we  have  reasons  to 
believe  that  there  is  more  than  the  periphery  to  be 
taken  into  account.  We  have  discovered,  during  the 
progress  of  reflection  on  the  matter  at  issue,  that 
we    have    a    central    nervous    system    with    various 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  rt 

branches  and  ramifications  distributed  throughout 
the  bodily  tissue,  and  various  evidences  go  to  show- 
that,  somehow,  all  states  of  consciousness,  whether 
sensory  or  intellectual,  whether  localized  on  the  pe- 
riphery in  perception  or  not,  are  connected  with  this 
central  nervous  system.  I  shall  not  indicate  the  evi- 
dence for  this,  as  the  fact  is  too  generally  known  and 
accepted  to  require  this.  The  fact  gives  rise  to  in- 
quiry about  the  apparent  source  of  sensation  in  affec- 
tions of  the  periphery,  and  so  the  question  whether 
it  really  occurs  there  or  in  central  brain  tissues.  The 
supposition  sometimes  is  that  the  peripheral  locali- 
zation of  the  sensation  is  an  illusion  and  that  it  is 
really  a  central  affair.  But  the  difficulty  is  at  least 
partly  solved  by  the  supposition  of  molecular  action 
of  the  nerves  between  the  periphery  and  the  brain. 
The  phenomena  of  reaction  time  seem  to  prove  this 
fact  of  transmission  from  surface  to  centre,  and 
possibly  in  return,  as  the  phenomena  of  peripheral 
localization  after  the  amputation  of  a  limb  seem  to 
prove  a  central  origin  for  all  peripherally  localized 
sensations.  Reaction  time  is  the  period  elapsing  be- 
tween the  moment  when  stimulus  touches  the  sen- 
sorium  and  the  moment  when  the  sensation  occurs. 
This  is  invariably  a  measurable  period,  and  seems 
to  show  beyond  a  doubt  that  a  certain  amount  of 
time,  insensible  to  our  rough  measures  of  sense-ex- 
perience, is  required  for  the  transmission  of  stimulus 
to  the  brain  and  the  occurrence  of  the  sensation. 
This  interval  is  supposed  to  be  filled  by  molecular 
vibrations  intervening  between  the  periphery  and  the 
brain-centres,  much  as  luminous  and  sonorous  vibra- 


28    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

tions,  outside  the  organism  and  acting  as  stimulus, 
intervene  between  the  object  and  the  sensorium.  Ad- 
ditional complications  are  thus  introduced  into  the 
already  perplexing  problem. 

Where  the  naive  view  supposed  that  we  simply  saw 
and  felt  objects,  that  is,  perceived  them  directly,  and 
where  it  was  not  troubled  by  anomalies  about  action 
at  a  distance,  intervening  space,  or  differences  be- 
tween mental  and  material  phenomena,  the  later  view 
recognizes  several  distinct  phenomena  which  may  be 
described  in  the  following  manner.  First,  we  have 
the  object,  often  at  a  distance,  perhaps  always  so, 
except  in  the  cases  of  touch  and  taste.  In  the  ther- 
^  mal   sense   there   is   the   capacity   of  perceiving   its 

C  V I         object  either  in  contact  or  at  a  distance.     Then  there 

is  the  system  of  motions  or  undulations  intervening 
between  the  object  and  sense.  There  is  next  the  im- 
pression upon  the  periphery  of  the  organism,  and 
this  is  followed  by  a  conjectured  molecular  action 
in  the  nerve-filaments  leading  to  the  central  nervous 
system.  When  these  "  impressions,"  or  influences,  are 
received  in  the  brain  or  nerve-centres  there  is  a  reac- 
tion, or  process  so  named  metaphorically  at  least, 
and  presumably  again  some  transmission  of  molecu- 
lar action  back  to  the  periphery  to  cause  either  sen- 
sation or  some  motor  action  in  the  muscular  system. 
What  these  inward  and  outward  transmissions  are 
we  do  not  know,  at  least  in  any  sensible  way.  They 
are  described  as  molecular  because  this  is  all  that 
we  can  conjecture  of  media  that  are  known  or  sup- 
posed to  be  molecular  in  structure  and  function.  But 
whatever  they  are,  they  are  conjectural  and  not  im- 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  29 

mediately  known.  They  seem,  however,  quite  as  well 
assured  as  if  they  were  directly  known.  Hence  there 
are  several  different  steps  in  the  production  of  sensa- 
tions and  perceptive  knowledge  where  the  naive  view 
had  supposed  the  process  a  very  simple  one;  and 
when  each  step  is  supposed  to  have  a  different  char- 
acter from  the  preceding  one,  it  is  natural  to  raise 
the  query  whether  we  actually  perceive  the  object  at 
all  as  it  is  ordinarily  conceived  to  be.  This  suspicion 
is  further  confirmed  by  the  doctrine  of  specific  nerve- 
energies,  which  shows  that  the  same  stimulus  acting 
on  different  sense-organs  will  produce  different  sen- 
sations, and  different  stimuli  acting  on  the  same  sense- 
organ  will  produce  the  same  sensation,  indicating  that 
the  sensory  organism  and  its  mode  of  action  are 
factors  in  what  is  often  taken  for  the  object  itself. 
Thus  a  shock  to  the  retina  will  produce  a  sensation 
of  light  as  well  as  luminous  vibrations  will  produce 
it,  and  a  touch  on  the  tympanum  of  the  ear  will  pro- 
duce a  sensation  of  sound  as  well  as  undulations  of 
the  air  will  produce  it. 

This  complexity  of  the  process,  taken  with  this 
peculiarity  of  specific  nerve-energies,  gives  rise  to 
many  curious  questions  in  the  reflective  mind.  The 
first  question  is,  how  can  we  know  objects  by  such 
a  mediating  process.  This  query  appears  to  have 
much  force  where  it  suggests  an  answer  opposed  to 
the  naive  view  which,  even  when  it  recognizes  the 
indirectness  of  the  process,  is  quite  satisfied  with  the 
assumption  that  the  thing  known  remains  intact, 
and  that  the  mediation  of  vibration  between  it  and 
sense  creates  no  serious  problems. 


30    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

The  most  of  us,  trained  or  untrained,  naturally 
accept  our  familiar  conception  of  the  object  as  be- 
yond revision  or  denial,  and  so  assume  that  the  vari- 
ous steps  supposed  to  explain  it  do  not  involve  any 
modification  of  our  idea  of  the  place  and  nature  of 
the  object.  But  the  very  fact  that  we  suppose,  or 
once  supposed,  that  the  object  is  immediately  known, 
—  and  certainly  that  which  usually  passes  for  such 
an  object  is  immediately  known,  —  while  we  have  no 
immediate  knowledge  of  the  intervening  motion  or 
activity  affecting  the  sensorium  and  nerve-centres, 
at  once  suggests  the  question  how  we  can  really  know 
the  object  when  this  is  assumed  not  to  come  into 
contact  with  sense  and  when  there  is  presumably  no 
resemblance  between  this  supposed  object  and  the 
motion  or  molecular  phenomena  that  give  rise  to  sen- 
sations. All  these  intermediate  steps  which  appear 
to  have  no  representative  character  for  things  at  a 
distance,  and  which  are  not  directly  known,  tend  to 
suggest  that  we  do  not  really  know  objects  at  all, 
or  that  there  is  no  such  direct  knowledge  as  we  had 
naively  supposed.  Consequently  many  minds  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  what  we  do  directly  know  is 
the  sensation,  the  subjective  state  of  the  sensorium, 
and  hence,  with  its  non-representative  character,  that 
we  have  to  infer  the  existence  of  the  external  object, 
which  can  only  affect  the  mind  by  agencies  that  are 
modified  all  along  the  line  between  the  external  and 
internal  worlds. 

Two  schools  of  thought  arise  here.  One  still  in- 
sists that  we  know  objects  immediately,  and  the  other 
that  we  do  not  "  know  "   them,  but  that  we  infer 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  31 

their  existence.  When  this  controversy,  however,  is 
reduced  to  its  final  terms,  the  difference  is  mainly 
whether  we  directly  and  certainly  know  the  nature 
of  reahty  or  not,  one  holding  that  we  do  in  some 
sense,  and  the  other  that  we  know  only  the  "  appear- 
a/nce  "  of  it,  the  way  in  which  the  sensorium  is  af- 
fected by  stimulus.  The  former  school  tends  to  think 
that  this  phenomenal  nature  of  the  object  involves 
the  assumption  that  our  knowledge  of  reality  as  nat- 
urally represented  is  illusory  and  not  to  be  trusted. 
But  I  shall  not  settle  the  controversy  between  these 
two  schools,  as  it  is  not  important  to  the  purposes  of 
this  discussion,  which  is  to  be  concerned  with  mental 
phenomena  and  their  relations  to  each  other,  with 
criteria  for  determining  those  which  have  a  normal 
practical  value  and  those  which  do  not.  It  would 
take  us  far  into  metaphysics  to  decide  the  dispute 
between  the  realist  and  the  idealist,  between  the  man 
who  thinks  we  know  reality  directly  and  the  man  who 
thinks  we  know  it  only  indirectly;  between  the  man 
who  thinks  we  know  the  nature  of  things  and  the 
man  who  thinks  we  know  only  their  appearance  or 
our  mental  states.  But  I  have  alluded  to  the  con- 
troversy for  the  purpose  of  making  intelligible  a 
view  of  our  mental  states  which  can  hardly  be  made 
clear  in  any  other  way,  and  this  was  suggested  by 
the  enormously  complex  processes  giving  rise  to  sen- 
sations. The  moment  that  it  was  called  upon  to 
suppose  that  objects  retained  their  immediate  integ- 
rity, after  a  whole  series  of  intermediate  agencies 
quite  different  from  them  was  necessary  to  arouse 
conscious  perception,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  naive 


32    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

view  which  had  accepted  the  direct  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness as  to  the  nature  of  objects  should  be  trou- 
bled by  the  apparent  illusory  character  of  the  judg- 
ment involved.  The  discovery  of  the  several  steps 
to  knowledge  brought  to  the  front  the  fact  that  the 
whole  matter  could  be  looked  at  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  mind  as  well  as  from  that  of  the  object.  What- 
ever the  presumed  causal  influence  of  objects  in  ex- 
citing sensation,  the  nature  of  the  sensation  was  at 
least  apparently  the  product  of  the  mind,  that  is, 
a  subjective  function,  and  was  in  no  respect  a  fac- 
_cx  simile  or  simulacrum  of  the  object,  and  much  less  was 
'  it  supposed  to  be  the  object  itself.  The  difference 
between  the  stimulus,  or  at  least  the  conception  of 
what  that  stimulus  was,  intervening  between  the 
object  and  the  mind,  namely,  the  motion  emanating 
from  the  object,  and  still  further  the  difference  be- 
tween the  molecular  action  of  the  nervous  system 
and  what  appeared  to  consciousness  in  sensation, 
made  it  difficult  to  suppose  that  we  actually  saw  or 
heard  objects  when  we  did  not  directly  know  the 
admittedly  immediate  causes  of  the  sensation,  with- 
out which  the  perception  of  the  object  would  not 
take  place.  Hence  arose  the  feeling  that  sensation 
is  purely  a  product  of  the  mind,  in  so  far  as  its 
nature  is  concerned,  though  its  occurrence  depended 
on  external  stimulus. 

Various  actual  experiences  also  seem  to  point  con- 
clusively to  the  same  result.  For  instance,  if  we 
look  at  the  sun  for  a  few  moments  and  then  turn 
toward  the  blue  sky  or  some  similar  background, 
we  shall  see  a  distinct  image  of  the  sun  projected 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  S3 

on  this  field,  and  for  a  few  seconds  it  cannot  be 
distinguished  from  the  real  sun.  It  will  then  fade 
into  what  is  called  the  negative  after-image,  an  image 
which  is  in  all  respects  like  the  sun  except  in  color 
and  brightness,  the  positive  after-image  not  being 
distinguishable  from  the  real  perception  of  the  sun, 
except  in  its  not  representing  a  real  or  supposed 
objective  fact.  The  negative  after-image  may  take 
a  red  or  a  green,  or  even  a  dark  color.  But  in  all 
cases  the  phenomenon  shows  a  continued  brain  or 
mental  activity  like  the  real  percept,  after  the  re- 
moval of  the  stimulus,  and  hence  without  the  actual 
presence  of  that  stimulus  in  any  normal  form. 
Again  if  we  place  the  finger  on  the  ball  of  the  eye 
and  move  it  so  that  the  effect  will  be  to  shift  the 
mental  images  present  there,  the  landscape  or  ob- 
jects at  which  we  are  looking  will  seem  to  move,  when 
in  fact  they  are  not  moving  at  all,  according  to  the 
standard  of  normal  judgment.  The  image  in  a 
mirror  does  not  represent  the  right  object  at  the 
real  point  of  space  at  which  it  is  situated,  and  cer- 
tain kinds  of  mirrors  will  distort  objects  beyond  all 
recognition.  If  we  look  at  objects  through  colored 
glass  they  do  not  seem  the  same  as  in  normal  vision. 
Color-blindness  illustrates  the  inability  of  the  sen- 
sorium  to  perceive  the  object  as  in  normal  percep- 
tion. The  prism  will  produce  color-distortion,  and 
the  microscope  will  magnify  the  size  of  objects. 

These  phenomena  are  not  new.  They  are  very 
familiar  examples  in  the  experience  of  all  of  us,  and 
perhaps  might  be  multiplied  in  various  ways.  But 
familiar  as  they  are,  we  do  not  always  think  of  their 


34    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

significance  for  our  views  of  sense-perception.  Even 
after  we  have  discovered  their  subjective  character 
we  still  think  and  act  as  if  our  normal  experience, 
which  is  supposed  to  have  retained  its  real  character, 
is  not  to  be  compared  with  these  illusory  instances. 
Btit  all  these  and  many  other  facts  show  that  our 
a  sensations  are  modifications  of  mental  action,  and 
thjjit  "  objects "  appear  according  to  the  way  the 
mind  is  made  to  act  by  influences  intervening  between 
the  supposed  object  and  the  subject  or  mind.  Hence 
we  are  forced  to  recognize  a  subjective  factor  in  our 
elementary  states  of  consciousness  that  is  neither  the 
object  nor  representative  of  it  in  any  sense  involv- 
ing identity  of  kind.  This  conception  of  the  matter 
precipitates  the  feeling  that  our  ordinary  judgments 
are  perfectly  illusory,  if  we  reflect  on  the  evident 
resemblance  between  the  normal  and  these  illusory 
experiences.  The  consequence  is  that  the  question  is 
raised  regarding  a  test  for  the  reality  and  validity 
of  any  of  our  sensory  knowledge.  If  we  cannot  trust 
such  primitive  and  tenacious  judgments  as  those  of 
sense-perception,  what  can  we  trust  ?  We  seem  forced 
by  the  facts  to  think  of  sensations  as  reactions  of 
the  mind  and  not  in  any  way  presentative  or  repre- 
sentative of  objects  at  all.  That  is,  they  are  not 
facsimiles  of  them,  and  we  either  know  nothing  of 
external  reality,  or  we  have  to  obtain  our  knowledge 
by  some  form  of  indirect,  inferential,  or  implicative 
act  of  the  mind  about  it.  Sensations  are  activities 
of  the  subject,  not  images  of  the  object,  even  though 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  in  some  way 
due  to  external  agency. 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  36 

The  reactions  of  physical  objects  under  impact 
afford  good  analogies  of  the  same  thing.  The  sound 
of  a  bell  is  not  like  the  hammer  or  the  motion  of  the 
hammer  that  produces  the  sound.  The  impact  of  the 
same  kind  of  a  blow  on  very  different  objects  pro- 
duces different  effects.  On  a  bell  it  is  a  musical 
sound,  and  on  different  bells  it  will  be  different 
sounds ;  on  an  ivory  billiard-ball  it  is  a  clear,  sharp 
sound,  on  clay  or  wood  it  is  a  dull  thud.  The  re- 
action in  all  such  cases  is  determined  by  the  nature 
of  the  subject  or  substance  affected,  or  on  which  the 
action  is  directed,  quite  as  much  as  by  the  external 
cause  and  perhaps  more.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
mind  or  brain.  Its  response  to  stimulus  is  not  like 
the  stimulus,  and  what  we  take  for  reality  in  our 
naive  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  appears  to  be 
only  the  mind's  own  product  or  "  construct."  What 
we  have  supposed  to  be  an  external  object  thus  seems 
to  be  a  mere  phenomenon  or  internal  fact. 

What,  then,  do  we  know  about  external  reality.'' 
How  do  we  know  that  our  experiences  in  sense  are 
not  illusions  or  hallucinations.?  In  what  way  are 
we  different  from  the  abnormal  or  insane  mind.'' 
What  criterion  have  we  for  our  belief  in  external 
objects?  The  insane  mind  apparently  sees  objects 
which  examination  shows  to  be  creations  of  his  own 
mind  or  brain,  and  which  are  not  objectively  real 
at  all.  In  what  respect  are  our  normal  experiences 
different  from  these? 

The  answers  to  these  questions  have  given  rise  to 
two  schools  of  thought.  One  of  them  calls  itself  the 
realistic   school,   and  means   in  some  way  to  insist 


36    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

that  our  normal  sensations  and  perceptions  stand  for 
at  least  something  outside  the  organism  which  we 
denominate  external  reality.  What  its  reasons  are 
for  this  judgment  I  am  not  concerned  at  present  to 
discuss.  They  are  not  important  for  the  purposes 
of  this  work,  which  is  to  study  mental  phenomena 
primarily  in  their  relation  to  the  distinction  between 
the  normal  and  the  exceptional.  Hence  I  am  inter- 
ested in  the  problem  of  Realism  only  in  so  far  as  it 
represents  a  class  of  thinkers  who  suppose  they  have 
a  means  of  defending  the  integrity  and  validity  of 
our  primitive  judgments,  based  upon  sensation,  and 
in  so  far  as  it  represents  the  effort  to  distinguish 
between  two  distinct  types  of  mental  phenomena  that 
have  different  relations  to  our  practical  life.  But 
this  realistic  school  divides  between  two  interpreta- 
tions of  experience.  One  division  holds  that  sense- 
perception  correctly  reports  the  nature  of  external 
reality  and  that  objects  are  as  we  see  them.  This 
school  may  be  called  that  of  Presentative  Realism, 
meaning  that  objects  are  presented  to  and  "  in " 
sense  as  they  appear.  The  other  division  of  the 
school  holds  that  we  do  not  directly  perceive  external 
reality,  but  that  we  infer  its  existence  from  our  sen- 
sations. This  view  is  called  Hypothetical  Realism. 
It  makes  some  concession  to  the  idea  that  sensations 
are  more  or  less  subjective  affairs,  while  the  alter- 
native view  tends  to  emphasize  the  result  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  object  and  perhaps  does  not  ap- 
preciate the  subjective  nature  of  sensation,  though 
neither  denying  nor  assuming  it  consciously. 

The  second  general  type  of  thought,  opposed  to 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  37 

Realism,  calls  itself  the  idealistic,  and  aims  to  judge 
of  experience  from  the  subjective  point  of  view.  It 
assumes  an  opposition  of  some  kind  between  sensa- 
tion and  what  it  betokens,  or  is  supposed  to  betoken. 
This  school.  Idealism,  divides  also  into  two  views. 
One  of  them  admits  the  existence  of  an  external 
reality,  but  denies  that  our  knowledge  of  it  is  direct 
or  presentative  and  immediate,  and  so  explains  that 
the  knowledge  is  inferential  or  hypothetical.  This 
view  is  virtually  identical  with  that  of  Hypothetical 
Realism,  and  differs  only  in  that  it  is  inclined  to 
emphasize  the  antithesis  between  sensation  and  reality. 
But  in  essential  particulars  the  view  is  identical  with 
hypothetical  realism.  The  second  type  of  idealism  is 
more  emphatic  still  in  its  representation  of  the  lim- 
itation of  knowledge  to  sensations  or  phenomena, 
and  inclines  to  abandon  all  antithesis  between  the 
subjective  and  objective,  so  that  in  so  far  as  it  ad- 
mits the  existence  of  external  reality  at  all,  it  makes 
it  the  same  in  kind  with  the  subjective,  and  to  that 
extent  approximates  Presentative  Realism,  save  that 
it  inclines  to  make  the  real  mental  instead  of  mate- 
rial. But  it  insists  on  maintaining  that  we  know 
nothing  about  the  nature  of  the  external  cause,  if 
it  is  not  mental.  Its  favorite  formula  is  that  we 
know  only  appearances  or  phenomena ;  that  we  know 
things  only  in  terms  of  consciousness,  etc.  This  view 
does  not  wholly  escape  the  belief  in  something  other 
than  sensations,  though  it  tends  either  to  deny  all 
possible  knowledge  of  this  reality,  or  assumes  that 
it  is  mental  in  nature.  Hence,  though  there  is  a 
point  of  reconciliation  between  this  view  and  either 


38    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

form  of  Realism,  it  has  certain  aspects  of  skeptical 
difference  that  distinguishes  its  way  of  looking  at 
things  from  that  of  naive  Realism. 

I  shall  not  undertake  here  to  solve  the  problem 
discussed  by  these  two  schools.  It  is  a  problem  that 
involves  more  than  the  criteria  to  distinguish  between 
the  normal  and  the  abnormal  or  exceptional  in  mental 
phenomena,  though  it  is  closely  connected  with  this 
in  some  respects.  The  question  in  dispute  between 
these  two  schools  primarily  regards  the  nature  of 
reality,  the  limits  of  presentative  knowledge,  rather 
than  the  fact  of  external  objects,  and  the  question 
of  illusions  arises  incidentally.  Illusion  is  suggested 
by  the  necessity  of  reviewing  our  primitive  and  naive 
judgments  when  we  come  to  admit  the  creative 
agency  in  what  it  knows  or  seems  to  know,  if  creative 
agency  is  the  proper  term  for  describing  the  act  or 
product.  Hence,  though  controversy  between  realism 
and  idealism  concerns  the  mode  of  explaining  knowl- 
edge, and  does  not  in  fact  represent  the  question 
regarding  the  distinction  between  valid  and  illusory 
mental  states,  it  gave  rise  to  this  problem  and  asso- 
ciated or  confused  it  with  the  metaphysical  issue. 
This  has  been  the  reason  for  discussing  it  as  much 
as  I  have  done,  because  it  is  the  historical  line  of 
thought  about  it  that  represents  the  way  in  which  it 
has  been  approached.  Though  we  may  abandon  the 
specific  way  in  which  the  dispute  is  carried  on  be- 
tween these  two  modes  of  speculation,  we  can  hardly 
escape  the  use  which  it  has  for  the  problem  of  decid- 
ing between  what  has  an  objective  and  what  has  a 
subjective  origin. 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  39 

The  realist  has  always  supposed  himself  assured 
of  a  criterion  for  distinguishing  valid  judgments 
from  illusions.  Whenever  he  discovered  or  suspected 
an  illusion  in  vision,  he  tested  his  experience  by  an 
appeal  to  touch  which  was  supposed  to  give  reality 
unmistakably.  Any  apparent  object  which  could 
not  affect  touch  was  an  illusion  in  the  sense  to  which 
it  appeared.  Thus  the  normal  and  the  real  became 
the  same  thing.  But  as  the  psychologist  could  as- 
sert the  subjectivity  of  tactual  sensations  quite  as 
well  as  the  visual,  the  aural,  or  the  thermal,  and  as 
illusions  are  occasionally  discoverable  in  tactual  ex- 
perience, the  security  against  illusion  had  to  be 
sought  by  some  other  means  than  touch  alone.  In 
our  ordinary  experience  tactual  phenomena  are  our 
test  of  what  is  real  when  we  find  the  need  of  asking 
whether  any  other  has  such  a  meaning  or  not,  and 
its  practical  value  in  the  various  adjustments  of  life 
need  not  be  disputed  or  doubted  when  asking  whether 
it  is  any  better  expression  of  the  nature  of  things 
than  any  other  sense.  Whatever  reasons  we  may  have 
for  an  appeal  to  tactual  experiences  for  testing  our 
relation  to  things,  we  do  not  require  to  suppose  that 
its  superior  importance  for  this  end  indicates  its 
right  to  estimate  the  nature  of  things  to  the  exclusion 
of  vision,  hearing,  and  the  other  senses.  Reflection 
on  the  common  relation  of  all  the  senses  to  our  knowl- 
edge, and  on  the  occasional  illusions  of  touch,  shows 
that  this  sense  no  more  gives  the  "  real "  directly,  as 
the  naive  view  conceives  it,  than  the  other  senses,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  it  becomes  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  real  and  the  normal  as  a  means 


40    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

of  evading  the  philosophical  controversy.  Hence  we 
may  relegate  the  dispute  between  the  realist  and  the 
idealist  to  the  domain  of  metaphysics  or  to  epistemol- 
ogy,  and  seek  the  explanation  of  illusory  and  abnor- 
mal phenomena  in  some  other  way.  This  new  way 
actually  came  into  recognition  with  modem  science 
with  its  emphasis  upon  the  relation  of  phenomena 
and  the  laws  of  their  occurrence  rather  than  upon 
their  metaphysical  causes. 

This  new  way  of  solving  the  problem  of  illusion 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  nature  of  things,  inter- 
esting as  this  question  may  be  to  the  human  mind, 
and  however  important  it  may  be  to  certain  types 
of  reflective  speculation  affecting  wider  than  imme- 
diate practical  issues.  Ignoring  this  metaphysical 
question,  it  sought  to  determine  the  practical  ques- 
tion by  ascertaining  the  laws  of  mental  action  and 
their  relation  to  daily  life,  in  which  there  was  no  dis- 
pute between  idealist  and  realist.  In  the  last  anal- 
ysis we  may  have  to  resort  to  the  principle  assumed 
by  both  these  schools,  namely,  that  of  external  cau- 
sality, for  deciding  when  a  phenomenon  is  purely 
subjective  in  its  origin  and  when  it  originates  outside 
the  subject.  But  in  regard  to  the  question  whether 
our  knowledge  of  reality  is  direct  or  indirect,  medi- 
ate or  immediate,  whether  we  know  things  as  they 
are  or  only  as  they  appear,  we  may  find  a  common 
field  for  scientific  investigation  in  the  uniformities 
of  coexistence  and  sequence  in  mental  phenomena, 
where  we  may  find  at  least  a  preliminary  and  pro- 
visional criterion  for  distinguishing  between  the  nor- 
mal and  abnormal  until  a  better  be  found,  if  it  be 


SENSE  -  PERCEPTION  41 

required.  But  if  we  are  not  seeking  the  causes  of 
phenomena,  we  may  be  satisfied  with  a  means  of 
measuring  the  expectation  of  their  occurrence  and 
relation  to  welfare  by  something  else  than  their  ex- 
planation. In  this  view  we  do  not  ask  for  the  nature 
of  objects,  or  perhaps  even  for  their  existence,  as  a 
test  for  the  normal  in  the  first  degree,  but  for  the 
association  of  different  sensations  and  the  relative 
frequency  of  their  association  as  a  means  of  fixing 
their  place  in  regulating  our  actions.  In  other  words, 
our  provisional  test  is  the  relation  of  experience 
to  the  practical  affairs  of  daily  life  and  immediate 
adjustment  to  environment.  The  limitations  of  this 
criterion  may  be  seen  in  the  conclusion.  But  for 
practical  emergencies,  as  they  are  affected  by  the 
immediate  demands  of  action,  the  various  associations 
of  sensation  and  the  observed  experience  of  other 
persons  are  the  main  test  of  what  is  "  real "  and 
what  is  illusory. 

In  applying  it  we  shall  still  correct  the  judgments 
of  one  sense  by  those  of  another,  but  we  shall  not 
involve  ourselves  in  the  problem  of  the  nature  of 
things.  We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  relations  of 
phenomena.  Our  ordinary  practical  life  has  to  be 
regulated  in  the  same  way  under  all  theories  of  the 
world,  whether  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  matter 
or  spirit,  whether  in  an  external  world  or  only  in 
subjective  states.  Even  if  vision,  for  instance,  is 
illusory  in  its  data,  we  cannot  persist  in  the  act  of 
looking  steadfastly  at  what  we  call  the  burning  sun. 
Nor  can  we  ignore  considering  our  footsteps  in  our 
behavior  toward  what  we  appear  to  see.     We  have 


■'Mii*'^Aj=f 


OF 


HE 


>^ 


^N'VERs 


f  TV 


42     PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

to  at  least  preserve  caution  and  to  see  that  our  ex- 
pectation of  associated  experiences  has  some  law  for 
its  guidance.  If  sense-perception  generally  be  illu- 
sory, and  if  we  have  no  criterion  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  nature  of  purely  subjective  and  the  nature 
of  the  objective  facts  of  knowledge,  there  is  a  com- 
mon means  of  distinguishing  between  different  sub- 
jective experiences  and  of  determining  their  rela- 
tion to  survival  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  This 
means  is  suggested  by  the  illustration  mentioned 
above.  No  matter,  for  instance,  how  subjective 
tactual  perception  is  or  may  be,  we  cannot  act  toward 
a  stone  as  we  would  toward  a  figure  behind  a  mirror. 
No  matter  how  subjective  heat-sensations  may  be,  we 
cannot  treat  them  as  we  would  after-images  or  stere- 
oscopic pictures.  We  have  to  regulate  our  conduct 
to  suit  certain  consequences,  or,  if  not  consequences, 
certain  recurrent  phenomena  and  associations  that 
are  related  to  our  welfare.  Hence  it  is  certain  uni- 
form relations  between  one  set  of  sensations  and 
another,  coexistent  or  sequent,  that  constitutes  the 
first  test  of  the  illusory,  the  illusory  being  merely  that 
which  can  be  safely  neglected  in  the  immediate  ad- 
justment of  ordinary  conduct.  The  full  meaning 
of  this  view  will  be  apparent  at  the  close  of  the  next 
chapter.  For  the  present  we  must  be  content  with 
the  general  fact  that  the  investigation  of  the  normal 
and  the  abnormal  in  mental  phenomena  can  be  car- 
ried on  without  any  prior  solution  of  the  metaphys- 
ical problem,  and  that  the  practical  test  of  the  dis- 
tinction between  them  will  be  some  law  of  their  re- 
currence and  association. 


CHAPTER    III 

INTERPRETING    AND    ASSOCIATING    FUNCTIONS    OF    THE 

MIND 

Our  sensations  are  not  the  whole  of  our  mental 
phenomena.  They,  our  sensations,  are  the  events 
that  occur  to  us  without  our  direct  voluntary  effort, 
and  seem  to  be  the  effects  of  something  not  ourselves. 
Whether  they  mean  anything  more  than  themselves 
is  the  question  to  be  discussed  in  the  present  chapter, 
but  they  are  certainly  that  type  of  occurrence  or  ex- 
perience which  enlists  our  curiosity  and  interest  most 
distinctly.  They  seem  to  demand  some  explanation 
of  their  occurrence,  especially  in  that  they  are  ex- 
tremely numerous  and  variable  in  each  sense-organ- 
ism, though  we  do  not  rely  upon  this  explanation  as 
a  measure  of  their  practical  value  for  immediate 
conduct.  They  are  conceded  to  be  events  which  do 
not  explain  themselves,  whether  we  adopt  the  realistic 
or  the  idealistic  theory  of  their  meaning,  the  one 
seeking  their  sole  cause  outside  the  subject,  and  the 
other  partly  in  the  actions  or  reactions  of  the  subject. 
In  this  conception  of  a  cause  for  them  they  seem  to 
imply  something  other  than  themselves,  and,  as  they 
represent  but  one  class  of  mental  phenomena  instead 
of  the  sole  type  of  them,  we  have  to  examine  the  com- 
plementary functions  of  mind  that  can  look  at  these 
sensations  and  assign  them  a  meaning.    I  do  not  here 

43 


44    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

refer  to  self-consciousness  and  its  numerous  data, 
as  they  are  not  of  interest  in  our  present  problem, 
though  they  are  important  in  the  final  discussion  of 
philosophic  questions:  but  I  refer  to  those  mental 
acts  or  processes  which  apply  alike  to  sensations  and 
reflections,  as  the  various  states  of  consciousness  may 
be  called.  These  functions  I  shall  call  judgmenty 
thus  dividing  the  material  of  the  present  problem 
into  Sensations  and  Judgments,  and  so  reduce  the 
fundamental  processes  of  the  mind  to  two  types. 
Sensations  are  facts  or  phenomena  which  are  to  be 
explained.  Judgments  are  the  acts  of  mind  explain- 
ing them. 

Judgment,  as  here  conceived,  is  the  act  of  mind 
which  interprets  and  explains  facts,  as  in  referring 
a  phenomenon  to  its  cause  or  to  the  class  to  which 
it  belongs.  Such  judgments  are  governed  by  cer- 
tain principles  or  laws  of  thought  determining  their 
meaning.  These  laws  are  sometimes  called  necessary 
assumptions  in  contradistinction  to  those  assump- 
tions which  are  not  well  accredited,  or,  if  well  accred- 
ited, may  require  proof.  But  whatever  we  call  them, 
they  are  those  conceptions  which  are  necessary  to 
the  interpretation  and  explanation  of  all  phenomena 
or  events.  They  indicate  the  nature  of  the  judg- 
ments formed  in  connection  with  all  facts  and  things 
with  whose  occurrence  or  existence  alone  we  are  not 
satisfied,  as  when  we  refer  a  fact  to  some  antecedent 
even,  or  to  some  cause  or  ground,  and  when  we  refer 
a  thing  or  fact  to  that  with  which  it  may  be  classed 
or  from  which  it  may  be  distinguished.  What  I 
have  said  indicates  two  general  principles  regulating 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  45 

our  judgments  or  constitutes  their  meaning  for  our 
knowledge.  They  are  the  principle  of  ccmsality  or 
ground,  and  the  principle  of  kind  or  type.  The  one 
explains  things  by  reference  to  what  produces  them, 
and  the  other  by  their  classification.  The  judgments 
which  represent  the  application  of  the  principle  of 
causality  are  found  in  those  propositions  which  pre- 
sent the  relation  between  substance  and  attribute,  and 
the  judgments  which  represent  the  application  of 
the  principle  of  kind  or  type  are  those  propositions 
which  present  the  relation  between  genus  and  species, 
or  between  class  terms.  We  may  call  the  first  form 
of  these  judgments  the  qualitative  or  intensive  judg- 
ment, and  the  second  the  quantitative  or  extensive 
judgment.  But  I  am  not  concerned  with  a  technical 
name  that  is  less  clear  than  their  definition,  and  so 
leave  the  adoption  of  such  titles  to  the  reader.  It 
is  what  we  mean  by  the  relation  between  substance 
and  attribute  on  the  one  hand  and  between  genus  and 
species,  or  class  terms,  on  the  other,  that  is  the  im- 
portant fact  to  keep  in  mind.  The  first  type  of  these 
judgments  is  illustrated  by  such  propositions  as 
"  Glass  is  transparent,"  "  Wood  is  hard,"  or  "  Fire 
burns,"  and  the  second  by  such  propositions  as 
"  Horses  are  quadrupeds,"  "  Wheat  is  a  food,"  or 
"  Christianity  is  a  religion."  Now  absolutely  all 
propositions  can  be  reduced  to  one  or  the  other  of 
these  types  of  thought,  and  by  the  proper  form  of 
expression  the  meaning  of  one  type  can  be  converted 
into  the  other,  or  rather  the  form  of  expression  may 
make  apparent  a  meaning  latent  in  the  other. 

The  first  judgment  that  we  form  on  the  occasion 


46    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

of  sensation  is  that  it  has  a  cause.  Of  course,  in 
adult  and  mature  experience  we  form  some  judg- 
ment of  what  the  cause  is,  but  it  is  probable  that 
our  earliest  judgments  represent  very  vague  and 
indefinite  conceptions  of  the  cause,  and,  when  we 
ascertain  what  place  the  subject  has  in  determining 
the  nature  of  sensation,  we  very  quickly  perceive 
that  what  the  cause  may  be  is  not  so  clear  as  we 
thought  it  was  in  our  earlier  and  more  naive  experi- 
ence. The  utmost  that  we  probably  say  or  think 
in  the  early  period  of  life  is  that  sensations  have  a 
cause,  and  that  this  cause  is  either  without  or  within 
the  body,  extra-organic  or  intra-organic.  I  need  not 
here  go  into  any  minute  or  profound  study  either 
of  the  processes  by  which  we  do  this  or  of  the  valid- 
ity of  these  judgments.  What  the  nature  of  things 
may  be,  whether  mind  or  matter,  both  or  neither,  need 
not  occupy  us.  Any  conclusion  that  we  might  adopt 
regarding  these  will  not  affect  the  fact  that  our 
normal  sensations  are  distinguished  with  practical 
clearness  from  the  abnormal  and  are  caused  by  ex- 
ternal agencies. 

I  have  just  said  that  these  judgments  are  formed 
severally  upon  individual  sensations,  and  when  this  is 
the  case  the  conception  of  what  the  cause  may  be  is 
very  indefinite.  It  is  little  more  than  the  fact  that 
sensations  are  caused  by  something,  and  that  their 
occurrence  is  not  due  to  chance  or  spontaneous  gener- 
ation. The  knowledge  thus  acquired  is  very  simple 
and  meagre.  Thus,  if  I  have  a  sensation  of  color, 
the  judgment  of  causality  formed  on  the  occasion 
of  the  experience  would  be  that  something  produced 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  47 

it.  We  might  be  uncertain  whether  it  was  ourselves 
or  something  else.  But  we  should  not  think  that 
the  sensation  occurred  without  a  cause  of  any  kind. 
We  should  probably  think  of  the  cause  in  this  early 
stage  as  something  indefinite,  and  perhaps  the  im- 
personal judgment,  "  It  has  color,"  or  "  It  causes 
this,"  would  be  the  form  which  our  mental  act  would 
take  at  the  time.  But  not  to  go  into  this  elaborately, 
the  main  point  to  be  illustrated  is  the  fact  that  each 
sensation  by  itself  would  not  give  the  complex  and 
systematic  unity  which  our  mature  judgments  actu- 
ally have.  They  would  result  in  a  vast  system  of 
judgments  without  unity  or  connection,  and  the  world 
would  appear  quite  different  from  what  it  actually 
does  appear  in  our  more  complex  judgments.  Such 
conceptions  as  are  represented  in  the  terms,  "  trees," 
"houses,"  "animals,"  "food,"  "morality,"  "poli- 
tics," "  religion,"  etc.,  would  not  appear  in  our 
thought.  We  should  only  have  a  class  of  discon- 
nected and  simple,  instead  of  complex,  things  involved 
in  our  judgments.  How,  then,  do  we  get  any  unity 
and  complexity  in  our  conceptions.'' 

Such  conceptions  as  I  have  enumerated,  namely, 
"  trees,"  "  houses,"  etc.,  represent  a  group  of  quali- 
ties or  properties  associated  with  the  same  subject 
or  cause.  Each  property  corresponds  to  a  particular 
kind  of  sensation  or  effect  produced  upon  the  mind. 
How  do  we  get  them  together? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  be  quite  simple 
and  clear.  We  begin  the  process  of  associating 
these  different  qualities  by  having  simultaneous  senr 
sat  ions  initiated  from  the  same  point  i/n^  space.     If 


48    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

I  find  that  a  sound  issues  from  the  same  point  as 
my  color  and  tactual  sensations,  I  refer  it  to  the 
same  object  or  cause,  and  so  it  would  be  with  all 
the  sensations  and  properties  that  I  experience  under 
like  conditions.  The  fact  that  they  occur  together 
and  are  referable  to  the  same  cause,  this  being  due 
to  the  unity  of  time  and  space  for  their  occurrence, 
gives  me  the  conception  of  a  unified  whole,  a  single 
substance  or  cause  for  a  group  of  qualities,  and  I 
thus  have  the  conception  of  a  single  complex  object, 
complex  in  its  numerical  attributes,  such  as  "  Char- 
ter Oak,"  "Gladstone,"  "Plato,"  etc.  These  are 
individual  groups  of  qualities  which  are  not  dupli- 
cated in  our  experience,  and  do  not  require  compari- 
son with  others  in  the  formation  of  them. 

I  see  a  yellow  color  and  find  also  a  certain  taste 
associated  with  it  and  a  soft  tactual  quality.  I  as- 
sign them  the  same  subject  and  give  it  a  name.  I 
may  find  other  qualities  also  associated  with  these, 
and  retain  the  same  name  for  the  subject.  If  I  have 
never  experienced  anything  like  this  particular  ob- 
ject, the  name  for  it  will  be  that  of  a  singular  term, 
as  illustrated  in  the  singular  concepts  above. 

But  I  do  not  stop  with  this  process  of  associating 
or  synthetizing  qualities  and  sensations.  This  is  a 
comparatively  simple  and  elementary  process,  and  the 
conceptions  which  we  actually  denominate  by  all  but 
proper  names  represent  an  additional  act  of  judg- 
ment. Hence  the  next  step,  after  forming  the  sim- 
ple associations,  or  perhaps  better,  consociations  of 
separate  sensations  and  qualities  in  the  same  subject, 
is  to  compare  the  different  objects  of  experience,  and 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  49 

classify  or  distinguish  them.  If  we  see  two  objects 
at  the  same  time  and  they  are  essentially  alike,  we 
can  apply  the  same  term  to  them,  and  again,  if  we 
see  two  objects  at  different  times  and  they  have  the 
same  essential  qualities,  we  may  also  apply  the  same 
term  to  them.  In  the  former  of  these  acts  no  memory 
is  involved;  in  the  latter  memory  is  added  to  the 
process.  In  both  there  is  comparison  of  one  experi- 
ence or  object  with  another,  and  they  are  classified 
together,  if  they  are  essentially  the  same  in  nature, 
and  distinguished  if  they  are  different  in  charac- 
teristics. Thus,  if  I  find  two  balls  of  the  same  size, 
color,  density,  structure,  weight,  and  uses  with  any 
other  identical  properties,  I  can  denominate  them 
by  the  same  name,  such  as  cannon-balls.  But  if  the 
balls  differ  in  all  these  qualities,  I  should  have  to 
denominate  them  by  different  terms,  such  as  "  ap- 
ples "  and  "  bullets."  They  may  have  other  similar 
properties  that  enable  us  to  call  them  matter,  but  they 
will  remain  distinguished  as  species  nevertheless,  while 
the  more  general  term  will  be  the  genus  representative 
of  the  common  properties.  This  whole  process  of 
classification  simplifies  the  use  of  language  and  still 
further  unifies  experience.  All  objects  of  an  essen- 
tially like  character  can  have  common  conceptions 
and  terms,  and  those  that  essentially  differ  may  have 
that  difference  marked  in  the  proper  manner,  suitable 
to  the  needs  of  practical  life. 

The  principle  on  which  our  judgments  of  this 
character  proceed  is  what  I  have  called  the  principle 
of  kind  or  type.  In  metaphysical  parlance  it  is 
called  the   principle   of   identity   and   difference,   to 


50    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

distinguish  it  from  that  of  causality.  Perhaps  some 
would  prefer  to  call  it  the  principle  of  similarity  and 
diversity.  It  is,  however,  well  enough  understood 
in  traditional  parlance  as  that  of  identity  and  dif- 
ference, which  I  here  denominate  for  the  general 
understanding  as  that  of  kind  or  type.  By  it  we 
compare  and  distinguish  objects  and  systematize  our 
knowledge  of  the  world  to  a  much  larger  extent  than 
we  can  by  the  application  of  causality  alone.  We 
reduce  the  number  of  causes  in  things  to  a  smaller 
quantity,  and  ultimately  to  a  single  one,  if  the  facts 
justify  it.  The  process  applies  to  all  our  concep- 
tions involving  class  terms,  and  so  represents  the  uni- 
fication and  systematization  of  knowledge  over  the 
whole  complex  field  of  experience. 

The  two  general  kinds  of  judgment  which  we  have 
been  discussing,  and  which  I  previously  named  the 
intensive  and  extensive,  may  be  called,  for  greater 
clearness,  causal  and  classifying  judgments.  Causal 
judgments  are  those  which  refer  experiences  and 
facts  to  the  agents  that  produce  them.  Classif3ring 
judgments  are  those  which  reduce  experiences  and 
facts  to  specific  and  generic  types.  As  I  have  re- 
marked above,  the  former  judgments  represent  the 
relation  between  substance  and  attribute;  the  latter 
that  of  genus  and  species,  or  class  terms.  These 
processes  represent  the  whole  of  our  normal  activi- 
ties of  thought  in  the  interpretation  and  explanation 
of  facts,  and  whatever  principles  we  shall  have  to 
appeal  to  in  the  study  of  exceptional  facts  must  be 
adjustable  to  these  facts  in  some  manner.  We  in 
some  way  get  beyond   sensations   or  phenomena   in 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  51 

these  processes,  and  so  satisfy  our  expectation  that 
facts  do  not  occur  of  themselves,  and  that  they  are 
so  related  to  each  other  as  to  give  a  world  of  unity 
and  connection.  The  next  step  is  to  see  what  means 
we  have  for  distinguishing  between  normal  and  ab- 
normal judgments  in  this  field. 

There  are  two  important  ideas  which  these  funda- 
mental judgments  represent.  They  have  been  men- 
tioned above,  but  I  recur  to  them  here  ^at  I  may 
formulate  them  for  future  use  when  I  come  to  study 
the  claims  of  supernormal  knowledge.  They  are 
(1)  that  the  causal  judgment  goes  outside  the  or- 
ganism for  the  explanation  of  the  occurrence  of  nor- 
mal sensations,  and  (2)  that  the  classifying  judg- 
ments reduce  the  number  of  causes  to  a  minimum. 
We  shall  have  occasion  later  to  use  these  maxims 
frequently. 

The  point,  however,  at  which  skepticism  begins  In 
regard  to  the  causal  judgments  of  sense  is  that  which 
represents  the  doubt  about  our  primitive  and  naive 
perceptions,  and  it  may  admit  the  general  principle 
and  raise  the  doubt  about  the  special  application 
of  it.  The  skeptic  may  well  admit  that  sensations 
are  caused,  but  he  may  wish  to  ask  whether  this  cause 
may  not  be  the  action  of  the  mind  and  not  an  ex- 
ternal agent.  The  fact  which  may  seem  to  favor  his 
doubts  is  that  which  represents  sensations  and  states 
of  consciousness  as  our  own.  In  some  way  we  relate 
them  to  ourselves,  that  is,  the  mind  or  organism,  and 
not  as  events  or  states  of  an  external  object,  and 
with  this  we  may  ask  whether  the  subject  might  not 
thus  be  the  cause  of  them,  instead  of  the  external 


52    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

world  being  the  cause.  The  additional  circumstance 
that  suggests  this  view  is  the  discovery  that  our  sen- 
sations are  not  presentative  or  representative  of  ob- 
jects, but  actions  or  reactions  of  our  minds  or  brains. 
This,  as  we  have  remarked  before,  requires  us  to 
look  at  the  subject  as  well  as  the  object,  at  the  or- 
ganism as  well  as  the  external  thing,  for  some  ex- 
planation of  the  facts.  If,  then,  we  rest  satisfied  that 
our  minds  are  the  cause  of  sensations,  and  not  the 
external  world,  we  have  no  credentials  for  extra- 
organic  causes  of  any  kind,  and  the  causal  judgment 
could  not  be  used  to  guarantee  external  reality. 

I  doubt,  however,  whether  any  one  seriously  en- 
tertains these  assumed  difficulties  as  genuine  ones. 
The  question  may  be  put,  and  however  it  is  answered 
by  the  skeptic  the  normal  mind  will  not  Be  greatly 
puzzled  by  it,  especially  if  it  is  given  to  the  analysis 
of  its  conceptions,  as  this  habit  will  quickly  suggest 
the  equivocations  in  the  term  cause  that  give  the 
skeptic  the  whole  apparent  force  of  his  query.  But, 
though  we  see  easily  enough  that  the  difficulty  is  not 
a  real  one,  it  does  suggest,  if  it  does  not  make  im- 
perative, the  study  of  facts  which  are  held  to  illus- 
trate and  prove  the  complexity  of  our  mental  states 
and  convictions,  and  the  illusions  to  which  we  are 
now  and  then  exposed. 

But  there  are  facts  which  seem  to  vindicate  the 
judgment  of  external  causality  against  all  suspicion. 
Some  of  them  have  been  suggested  u.  the  discussion 
of  sense-perception.  But  I  was  there  discussing  the 
meaning  of  sensation  for  practical  life  and  action, 
without  involving  it  in  the  problem  of  causality  and 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  53 

even  supposing  that  it  was  a  wholly  subjective  affair. 
Here,  however,  I  am  concerned  with  the  additional 
factor  introduced  into  the  problem  of  knowledge  by 
the  judgment  of  causality,  and  especially  by  that  of 
external  causality.  We  may  distinguish  between 
values  in  experiences,  and  we  may  determine  that 
type  which  we  have  to  regard  in  our  actions  and 
expectations  without  raising  the  question  of  causality 
external  or  internal.  But  we  do  not  thereby  escape 
the  necessity  of  reckoning  with  such  causality,  espe- 
cially if  the  external  causal  agency  be  intelligent, 
human  or  divine.  The  test  of  its  existence,  therefore, 
becomes  a  matter  of  some  importance.  Hence  we 
may  have  to  repeat  in  this  new  relation  some  of  the 
points  concerned  in  the  last  chapter,  and  in  repeating 
them  add  others  to  the  list  of  criteria  that  may  enable 
us  to  distinguish  between  normal  and  abnormal  phe- 
nomena. 

The  first  fact  vindicative  of  external  causality 
is  the  circumstance  that  we  do  not  voluntarily  and 
directly  produce  our  own  sensations.  We  may  pro- 
duce voluntary  movements  in  our  organism,  from 
which  sensations  follow  as  physical  or  other  conse- 
quences, but  we  cannot  produce  any  particular  sen- 
sation directly,  at  least  normally,  by  a  fiat  of  will. 
Sensations  are  purely  involuntary  affairs  and  also 
unconscious  affairs  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  con- 
sciously caused.  We  may  be  aware  of  them  after 
they  occur,  but  we  are  not  aware  of  what  sensations 
are  going  to  occur,  and  cannot  anticipate  them  until 
experience  has  taught  us  the  law  of  their  occurrence, 
and  even  this  anticipation  is  in  no  respect  related  to 


54    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

the  causal  agency  of  consciousness  as  a  direct  influ- 
ence. Hence  we  do  not  produce  sensations  bj  think- 
ing of  them  in  any  normal  manner,  or  by  expecting 
them.  They  may  be  purely  subjective  affairs,  never- 
theless, as  subliminal  creations,  but  this  possibility 
does  not  affect  their  relation  to  our  voluntary  and 
conscious  activity.  This  is  not  their  direct  cause, 
and,  as  they  do  not  follow  any  known  law  of  sub- 
conscious causation,  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  cause  is  foreign  to  the  subject,  at  least  in 
all  instances  which  we  have  ground  to  believe  are 
normal. 

The  reply  to  this  would  be  the  comparatively  re- 
cent fact  of  science,  alluded  to  above,  that  there  are 
all  sorts  of  phenomena  occurring  within  the  organism 
that  are  not  externally  initiated  in  any  such  way 
as  normal  sensations  are  supposed  to  be.  There  are 
involuntary  muscular  actions  that  are  not  traceable 
to  any  such  correlation  with  external  events  as  is 
noticeable  with  many  voluntary  actions.  There  is 
also  the  whole  field  of  subliminal  mental  activities 
that  are  neither  voluntary  nor  conscious,  and  yet 
they  do  not  seem  to  be  coordinated  with  any  known 
external  stimuli.  They  are  manifest  in  somnambulism 
and  hypnotic  states,  in  automatic  writing  and  the 
phenomena  of  secondary  personality,  and  many  facts 
that  exhibit  themselves  in  deliria.  These  facts  suggest 
that,  even  though  sensations  may  not  be  consciously 
produced  by  ourselves,  they  might  be  produced  un- 
consciously by  the  organism  or  that  part  of  ourselves 
which  represents  the  basis  of  subliminal  acts,  sensory 
or  motor.     I  say  suggest,  because  I  am  far  from 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  65 

admitting  that  they  are  evidence  of  a  subjective 
origin  for  sensation  normally  understood.  I  have 
mentioned  them  only  in  deference  to  that  skeptical 
temperament  which  can  often  give  evidential  trouble 
more  than  it  can  influence  conviction  even  on  its  own 
side.  Of  course,  if  some  things  are  produced  sub- 
jectively, why  may  not  all  of  them  be?  But,  while 
facts,  like  subliminal  actions,  may  demand  that  we 
seek  and  establish  an  adequate  criterion  for  the  dis- 
tinction we  make  between  objective  and  subjective 
causality,  it  is  another  thing  for  it  to  treat  its  que- 
ries as  implying  a  totally  subjective  agency  in  the 
phenomena  concerned.  We  might  have  as  good  rea- 
son for  supposing  that  they  are  all  objectively  insti- 
gated because  some  of  them  are,  and  that  is  a  posi- 
tion which  even  the  skeptic  cannot  admit  or  urge  with- 
out eliminating  the  ground  of  his  doubts  about  the 
objective.  We  may  have  as  good  evidence  of  external 
causality  as  we  have  of  the  internal,  though  we  may 
have  diflSculty  in  applying  a  criterion  to  distinguish 
between  them  in  concrete  instances,  while  not  being 
in  doubt  about  the  majority  of  them. 

But  the  point  of  defence  for  the  external  causal 
judgment  here  is  that  there  is  no  such  system  in  the 
occurrence  of  such  phenomena  supposedly  initiated 
by  unconscious  activities  as  we  find  in  normal  experi- 
ences, at  least  so-called.  There  are  plenty  of  sys- 
tematic mental  conceptions  so  originated,  but  not 
sensations,  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  test  them. 
Especially  there  is  no  such  synthetic  or  associated 
grouping  of  different  sensations  as  we  find  them  in 
the  cases  where  the  ordinary  judgment  holds  good. 


56    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

That  is,  sensations  of  touch  and  hearing  do  not  fol- 
low supposed,  or  even  proved,  subjective  visual  ex- 
periences, as  they  should  follow  them  if  all  were 
subjective,  because  that  is  the  law  of  our  supposedly 
normal  sensations.  Hence  we  feel  constrained  by 
the  systematic  way  in  which  our  normal  sensations 
occur  to  refer  them  to  an  external  source,  whatever 
we  may  say  or  think  about  their  being  our  own,  and 
whatever  we  admit  about  the  occasional  influence  of 
subjective  agencies  in  simulating  them.  There  is  no 
such  systematic  association  of  simulated  sensations 
in  diff^erent  senses  by  subjective  causes  as  we  rely 
upon  to  test  our  objective  realities. 

There  is  another  important  fact  pointing  in  the 
same  direction.  It  is  that  the  vindication  of  the 
external  causal  judgment  does  not  depend  upon  deny- 
ing the  function  of  the  mind  or  brain,  either  to  deter- 
mine the  nature  of  sensation  or  to  originate  sub- 
conscious states  that  issue  occasionally  in  abnormal 
sensations  or  the  simulation  of  real  sensations.  All 
that  the  notion  of  external  causality  requires  is  that 
it  should  be  responsible  for  the  occurrence  of  sensa- 
tions and  not  for  their  nature.  We  may  grant  all 
that  the  skeptic  may  wish  to  claim  about  the  agency 
or  influence  of  the  mind  on  the  character  of  sensa- 
tions. This  claim  does  not  carry  with  it  the  ex- 
planation of  the  time,  regularity,  and  systematic 
occurrence  and  association  of  diff^erent  sensations,  but 
only  their  nature  or  qualitative  character;  that  is, 
their  non-representative  content  in  relation  to  the 
real  or  supposed  external  cause.  The  objective  cause 
is  the  primary  agent  in  determining  whether  normal 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  57 

sensations  shall  occur  at  all,  and  the  subject,  mind, 
or  organism  is  the  agent  that  determines  their  nature, 
that  is,  their  quality,  when  they  do  occur. 

These  arguments  have  been  discussed  on  the  as- 
sumption that  we  have  no  other  criterion  of  external 
causality  than  the  mere  regularity  of  individual  sensa- 
tions unassociated  with  each  other.  But  in  actual  ex- 
perience the  test  is  somewhat  different,  especially  when 
we  wish  to  know  the  particular  concrete  object  or 
cause,  and  this  will  be  true  whether  this  different  test 
is  any  more  valid  or  not  than  the  one  just  indicated. 
This  additional  fact  is  that  of  testing  the  judgment 
formed  on  the  occasion  of  one  sensation  by  the  proper 
occurrence  or  concurrence  of  a  sensation  in  another 
sensory  organism.  This  is  to  test  the  case  by  a  num- 
ber of  associated  sensations  in  different  organs,  or 
technically,  by  synthetically  associated  experiences. 
Thus,  if  we  have  a  visual  sensation  whose  external 
cause  we  may  suspect  as  illusory,  we  may  test  its  ob- 
jective source  by  trying  to  touch  the  apparent  object, 
or  obtain  from  it  experiences  of  taste,  sound,  or  other 
sensation.  I  am  not  supposing  here  that  every  vis- 
ible object  is  tangible.  There  may  be  visible  or 
audible  objects  that  are  not  tangible,  so  far  as  I 
know,  and  I  shall  not  deny  their  existence,  but  this 
is  not  the  condition  of  our  usual  experience.  Gen- 
erally we  find  that  any  visible  reality  is  also  tangible, 
and  we  have  the  right  to  expect  on  the  basis  of  this 
usual  experience  that  tangibility  will  follow  upon 
visibility.  For  our  normal  experience,  as  we  know 
it  usually,  objects  are  a  complexus  of  qualities  that 


58    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

affect  different  senses,  and  that  is  what  we  usually 
mean  by  concrete  external  realities.  Hence,  what- 
ever existence  may  be  for  merely  visual  experience, 
we  can  test  our  usual  conception  of  externality  only 
by  an  appeal  to  synthetic  experience.  This  is  cor- 
recting the  possible  illusion  of  interpretation  in  one 
sense  by  the  action  of  another,  and  on  the  assumption 
that  the  probabilities  are  against  mere  chance  of 
both  senses  being  deceived  in  the  causal  inference. 
For  in  every  sensory  experience  involving  a  possi- 
ble synthesis  of  sensations  there  is  the  causal  infer- 
ence as  well  as  the  causal  judgment.  The  causal 
judgment  merely  asserts  that  the  sensation  has  a 
cause,  or  that  its  cause  is  external,  but  it  does  not 
assert  that  the  cause  is  also  tactual  or  audible.  It 
infers  or  expects  this  from  previous  experience  of 
their  association  or  synthesis. 

Thus,  to  illustrate  the  whole  case,  if  I  see  an  image 
in  a  mirror  and  take  it  for  a  real  object,  as  children 
and  savages  often  do,  I  may  in  various  ways  ascer- 
tain whether  it  represents  a  reality  where  it  is  seen 
or  not.  I  may  try  to  touch  the  apparent  object, 
and,  failing  in  this  expected  result,  I  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  an  error  of  judgment  some- 
where. I  may  study  the  constancy  of  this  image  in 
relation  to  other  facts,  and  if  I  find  that  it  moves 
with  the  object  which  the  image  supposedly  repre- 
sents, I  do  not  attempt  to  touch  it  or  to  test  it  in 
that  way,  perceiving  that  the  phenomenon  is  not  a 
normally  usual  one.  Or  I  may  try  to  see  it  from 
different  points  of  view,  and  failing  that,  I  may  also 
conclude  that  the  phenomenon  is  in  some  way  sub- 


INTERPRETING   FUNCTIONS  69 

jective.  It  will  be  the  synthetic  association  of  tac- 
tual and  other  sensations,  as  well  as  the  synthesis  of 
recurrent  sensations  in  the  same  organ  from  different 
points  of  view  and  at  different  times,  that  will  assure 
the  conviction  of  externality,  as  usually  conceived, 
where  individual  and  transient  experiences  will  not 
certify  for  us.  It  is  important  to  remark,  however, 
that  the  illusion  in  the  instance  under  notice  is  not 
regarding  the  externality  of  the  cause,  its  external 
existence,  but  the  locus  of  it,  its  position  in  space. 
We  find  on  all  examination  of  such  cases  that  the 
mistake  was  in  the  localization  of  the  object,  and  not 
in  its  external  existence.  It  may  be  much  the  same 
with  other  experiences.  Hence  the  very  reference  to 
such  illusions  may  only  confirm,  instead  of  nullify, 
our  ordinary  judgments. 

It  is  the  failure  to  secure  other  sensations  than  the 
given  one  that  strengthens  the  suspicion  of  error 
when  it  is  feared,  and  to  the  same  extent  their  asso- 
ciation or  synthesis  encourages  the  belief  in  objec- 
tivity. The  casual  instead  of  causal  synthesis  of 
illusions  would  be  hard  to  accept.  But  the  skeptic 
would  have  to  assume  a  causal  connection  between 
different  sensations  when  he  supposes  that  two  or 
more  of  them  are  associated  regularly  and  without 
a  correlative  external  cause.  Otherwise  he  could  not 
expect  any  coincidence  of  the  phenomena  as  he  finds 
them,  and  anything  like  a  causal  nexus  in  such  cases 
would  involve  him  in  the  want  of  a  test  for  illusion 
itself,  since  the  usual  criterion  of  an  illusion  is  just 
this   absence  of  causal  connection  or  the  properly 


60     PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

associated  sensation  when  the  external  causal  judg- 
ment would  require  it.    Let  me  illustrate. 

The  savage  thinks  at  first  that  the  image  which 
he  sees  in  a  mirror  is  a  real  object,  where  it  is  ap- 
parently situated  behind  the  glass.  Perhaps  in  some 
cases  we  may  not  know  of  the  mirror,  and  have  to 
discover  it  by  first  ascertaining  the  error  of  our 
judgment  about  the  apparent  object.  The  infer- 
ence of  the  savage  is  natural  enough,  and  would  be 
made  by  any  one  who  had  not  grown  familiar  with 
the  phenomenon.  But  the  savage  proceeds  to  test 
his  inference  by  seeking  the  object  behind  the  mirror, 
and,  failing  to  find  it,  he  is  more  or  less  assured  that 
there  is  some  illusion.  He  does  not  realize  his  expec- 
tations where  they  would  be  realized  if  the  proper 
external  object  were  there  as  apparently  seen,  or  if 
there  were  any  causal  nexus  between  the  first  visual 
image  and  the  expected  tactual  sensation.  If  the 
object  were  not  there  and  the  occurrence  of  the 
appropriate  sensations  took  place,  we  should  have 
to  suppose  the  causal  connection  to  be  between  the 
sensations.  But  the  absence  of  this  sequence  indi- 
cates that  we  must  seek  the  causal  nexus  elsewhere 
than  between  the  sensations  themselves.  In  my  nor- 
mal experience,  as  we  name  the  usual  order  of  mental 
events,  I  do  not  find  any  such  invariable  synthesis 
or  nexus  of  sensations  as  the  causal  judgment  would 
require.  Under  one  set  of  conditions  I  find  a  given 
association  and  under  another  a  totally  different  asso- 
ciation of  them.  This  fact  shows  that  there  is  no  in- 
herent causal  relation  per  se  between  the  sensations, 
and  if  that  causal  nexus  does  not  naturally  exist  be- 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  61 

tween  them,  it  would  be  extremely  improbable  that  two 
or  more  senses  would  have  so  regularly  simultaneous 
illusions  about  the  same  apparent  object.  If  this, 
however,  were  an  actual  fact  in  an  occasional  in- 
stance, it  would  still  be  quite  improbable  that  the 
coincidence  would  be  a  constant  one.  If  it  were  a 
constant  one,  we  might  have  evidence  of  a  causal 
connection  which  would  prevent  the  discovery  of  illu- 
sion in  any  case,  and  certainly,  whatever  we  should 
call  the  phenomenon  in  such  a  case,  it  would  not  be 
illusion  as  we  now  understand  it. 

Moreover,  the  very  fact  that  we  can  recognize 
subjective  agency  at  all,  and  clearly  distinguish  in 
most  cases  between  it  and  what  we  regard  as  ob- 
jective or  external,  is  in  favor  of  the  belief  that  some 
experiences  represent  a  causality  not  our  own,  even 
though  we  cannot  prove  the  contention,  and  we  only 
await  a  suitable  criterion  for  determining  this  source. 
This  capacity  for  distinguishing  the  different  types 
of  experience  requires  us  to  look  for  different  causes, 
and  sensations  of  the  normal  and  involuntary  class 
show  such  a  relation  to  all  that  we  can  easily  trace 
to  our  conscious  and  unconscious  causality  that  the 
only  natural  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  refer  their 
origin,  that  is,  their  occasioning  cause,  to  something 
else  than  ourselves  and  so  make  them  incident  to 
extra-organic  initiation. 

Perhaps  the  most  decisive  proof  of  this  extra- 
organic  causality  for  normal  sensations  is  a  certain 
characteristic  difference  in  them  in  comparison  with 
such  as  we  believe  or  can  prove  to  be  subjective. 
The  normal  sensations  have  a  fixity  and  regularity 


62    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

in  their  associations  or  occurrence  in  certain  condi- 
tions which  the  subjective  do  not  have  in  the  same 
conditions.  An  illusion  will  not  persist  so  long  as 
a  normal  sensation,  and  yields  to  investigation  and 
experiment  when  the  normal  will  not  be  eliminated. 
A  normal  sensation  will  preserve  its  character  and 
uniformity  of  occurrence  with  the  change  of  all  con- 
ditions but  that  of  its  actual  cause  objectively  con- 
sidered ;  an  illusion  is  more  variable.  The  least 
modification  of  our  environment,  say  as  in  case  of 
the  image  in  a  mirror,  will  dispel  many  illusions,  when 
a  normal  sensation  will  not  undergo  any  alteration 
in  the  same  circumstances.  Again  the  illustration  of 
the  image  in  the  mirror  applies.  A  real  object  would 
be  found  to  respond  to  experiment,  though  the  place 
of  the  observer  change,  while  an  illusory  sensation 
would  disappear  or  show  certain  changes  that  be- 
trayed its  purely  subjective  character.  For  instance, 
again  our  normal  perception  of  the  sun  has  a  fixity 
and  uniformity  of  relative  position  with  reference  to 
various  associated  sensations  that  our  after-image 
of  it  does  not  have.  We  have  to  be  definitely  related 
to  a  fixed  environment  in  order  to  have  a  certain 
sensation  of  the  sun  that  even  purports  to  be  real, 
but  the  after-image  can  be  seen  anywhere  under  the 
proper  conditions.  This  objective  fixity  of  some- 
thing in  contrast  with  the  subjective  caprice  and 
variability  of  what  we  discover  in  illusion  is  a  cir- 
cumstance of  great  importance,  and  it  coincides  with 
all  the  other  facts  that  point  to  a  cause  necessarily 
distinguishable  from  subjective  agency  alone.  But 
the  conviction  of  it  will  not  be  accomplished  by  any 


INTERPRETING   FUNCTIONS  63 

offhand  methods.  It  will  require  the  scientific  spirit 
and  method  to  protect  judgment  from  mistakes. 

I  have  not  discussed  the  processes  of  inference 
and  reasoning.  Thej  are  in  fact  forms  of  judg- 
ment, but  since  they  represent  an  application  of 
such  as  one  either  a  little  different  from  the  simplest 
causal  or  classifying  judgments  or  are  more  com- 
plex instances  of  them,  they  should  receive  some 
notice  as  interpreting  functions  of  our  minds.  We 
may  consider  inference  and  reasoning  as  identical, 
if  we  wish  so  to  characterize  the  inductive  and  de- 
ductive processes  as  reasoning  acts.  But  as  one 
gives  a  certitude  which  the  other  does  not,  it  is  cus- 
tomary with  some  writers  to  call  the  inductive  proc- 
ess inference,  and  the  deductive  process  reasoning. 
I  regard  the  two  as  essentially  the  same  psycholog- 
ically, but  as  different  in  the  content  and  certitude 
of  the  conviction  produced  by  them.  In  fact,  some 
writers  as  readily  use  inference  to  describe  the  deduc- 
tive reasoning  in  the  conclusion  as  they  would  induc- 
tive ratiocination.  But  if  the  reader  will  understand 
the  matter  better  by  confining  inference  to  inductive 
expectations  and  reasoning  to  deductive  certitude,  I 
shall  not  object  to  that  usage  of  the  terms.  I  mean 
here  to  speak  indifferently  of  inference  in  both  proc- 
esses. 

In  a  broad  sense  inference  is  reasoning  to  what 
we  do  not  see  at  the  time.  It  may  be  expectation 
of  future  facts  or  the  presence  in  reality  of  con- 
cealed facts.  Thus,  in  any  particular  sensation,  I 
may  infer  that  another  is  possible  if  tried.  If  I 
see  a  certain  yellow  color,  I  may  infer  that  the  object 


64    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

having  this  color  will  have  a  certain  taste,  say  that 
of  an  orange.  If  I  see  a  certain  type  of  cloud,  I 
may  infer  that  it  will  rain,  or  if  I  see  dew  on  the 
grass  regularly  after  clear  nights,  I  may  infer  that 
it  is  due  to  the  radiation  of  the  earth's  heat  absorbed 
during  the  day.  And  so  on  with  many  similar  illus- 
trations. In  all  of  them  we  are  supposing  the  ex- 
istence of  some  fact,  present  or  future,  that  is  not 
an  object  of  immediate  observation  or  is  not  a  part 
of  the  present  sensation  or  experience.  I  have  vir- 
tually indicated  this  conception  of  it  in  the  instances 
mentioned  to  illustrate  the  process  of  testing  the 
correctness  of  the  inference  for  the  judgment  of 
external  causality.  The  judgment  of  causality  is 
most  intimately  connected  with  the  explanation  of  the 
given  sensation,  and  it  is  only  an  inference  of  the 
existence  of  another  than  the  given  quality  in  the 
same  cause  that  suggests  the  need  of  certifying  the 
objectivity  of  meaning  in  the  present  sensation.  But 
this  process  of  anticipating  experience,  of  conjectur- 
ing the  existence  of  realities  not  immediately  revealed, 
is  the  one  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  scientific  and 
philosophic  reflection  and  gives  rise  to  the  systems 
of  philosophic  and  other  types  of  theories  taking 
us  far  beyond  present  facts. 

But  the  condition  of  doing  this  legitimately  is  the 
nature  of  previous  experience.  We  do  not  and  would 
not  infer  to  future  events  or  to  the  concealed  presence 
of  facts  not  actually  observed  were  it  not  that  the 
association  of  the  inferred  fact  and  the  present  sen- 
sation has  been  a  more  or  less  frequent  experience 
in  the  past.     We  have  to  realize  a  synthesis  or  asso- 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  65 

ciation  of  certain  experiences  frequently  enough  to 
suggest  the  probability  that  the  presently  unob- 
served fact  will  reveal  itself  at  the  proper  time  and 
under  the  appropriate  circumstances.  The  various 
judgments  of  causality  and  kind  have  to  be  frequent 
facts  of  experience,  and  their  associated  incidents 
have  to  be  such  a  law  of  that  experience  that  we 
would  have  to  surrender  the  unity  and  uniformity 
of  the  world  to  discredit  inferences  of  expectation. 
Hence  inferential  and  reasoning  processes  depend  on 
experience  for  their  justification,  and  so  they  have 
all  the  liability  to  mistake  and  illusion  that  all  an- 
ticipations and  expectations  have.  The  less  frequent 
the  experiences  which  suggest  them,  and  the  less 
constant  a  given  set  of  syntheses  and  associations,  the 
greater  the  exposure  to  mistake,  and  hence  the  dubi- 
ous character  of  those  speculative  constructions  which 
are  based  upon  small  inductions  or  few  data  in  ex- 
perience. Here  we  need  especially  to  be  on  our 
guard,  as  actual  experience  has  first  to  suggest  an 
inference  and  to  confirm  it  when  suggested.  The 
field  of  immediate  certitude  is  an  exceedingly  small 
one. 

We  have  then  these  three  processes  of  interpre- 
tation and  explanation.  Two  of  them,  the  judg- 
ments of  causality  and  of  classification,  relate  facts, 
the  one  to  a  cause  and  the  other  to  kind  or  type, 
to  similar  or  different  things.  The  third  anticipates 
other  facts  than  those  immediately  present  in  con- 
sciousness. The  causal  judgment  may  apply  to  what 
is  present  or  what  is  concealed,  and  so  also  the  judg- 
ment of  kind.     We  may  see  the  causal  connection 


66    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

between  two  present  facts  or  refer  a  fact  to  some- 
thing not  seen,  and  we  may  classify  or  distinguish 
two  present  facts  or  similarly  relate  one  to  a  fact 
or  facts  not  present.  In  both  we  may  include  in 
our  view  of  things  much  that  is  beyond  the  present 
sensations.  In  inferences  and  reasoning  we  go  still 
farther,  and  the  measure  of  assurance  that  we  can 
rightly  possess  in  the  act  will  depend  upon  the 
amount  of  experience  and  observation  that  we  have 
in  the  association  of  facts  and  the  care  with  which 
we  have  done  our  work.  Or  perhaps  we  may  have  an 
illegitimate  assurance  from  the  very  carelessness  with 
which  we  have  made  our  observations  and  neglected 
the  essential  for  the  unessential  relations  of  things. 
But  he  who  has  raised  the  question  about  the  right 
connections  in  facts  will  have  his  assurances  deter- 
mined by  the  insight  and  care  with  which  he  has 
made  his  observations  of  phenomena.  Otherwise  he 
will  be  the  victim  of  all  sorts  of  illusions.  The  ac- 
tually observed  constancy  of  phenomena  and  their 
association  or  synthesis,  often  for  a  long  period  of 
time,  is  necessary  to  distinguish  a  casual  from  a 
causal,  a  contingent  from  a  necessary  connection  or 
relation,  and  many  minds  rush  off  into  speculative 
theories  of  the  wildest  type  just  for  the  lack  of  that 
care  which  distinguishes  the  scientific  temperament, 
a  temperament  that  may  not  be  characterized  so 
much  by  doubt  and  denial  as  by  prudence  and  sus- 
pense of  judgment  until  proper  credentials  can  be 
secured  for  its  convictions. 

I  have   dwelt   upon  the  problem   of   illusion   and 
external  causality  for  our  sensory  experience  because 


INTERPRETING   FUNCTIONS  67 

I  have  wished  to  emphasize  the  difficulty  of  captious 
assertion  about  such  an  agency  right  in  our  normal 
life,  especially  by  the  reflective  mind.  I  quite  accept 
the  fact  that  in  our  ordinary  experience  we  have  no 
trouble  in  deciding  what  is  normal  and  objective  and 
what  is  abnormal  and  subjective.  The  very  number 
of  our  illusory  experiences,  to  say  nothing  of  their 
intrinsic  character,  makes  them  a  negligible  quan- 
tity in  our  practical  life  usually ;  and  it  is  our  imme- 
diate practical  life  that  is  mainly  concerned,  though 
a  remoter  life  may  be  equally  concerned  in  the  more 
careful  determination  of  the  relations  between  the 
normal  and  the  abnormal,  to  say  nothing  of  the  value 
attaching  to  the  more  scientific  and  definite  knowl- 
edge of  the  abnormal  and  its  relation  to  all  sorts 
of  ethical  demands  in  our  social  relations  to  each 
other.  When  we  come  to  scientific  reflection  and  the 
search  for  an  infallible  mark  of  the  objective  and 
the  subjective,  we  begin  to  encounter  a  certain  kind 
of  difficulty,  and  we  find  that  we  have  often  only 
been  measuring  off  one  illusory  certainty  against 
another.  The  importance  of  the  reflective  standard 
in  the  study  of  experience  shows  itself  in  the  inves- 
tigation of  those  abnormal  phenomena  about  which 
there  is  no  doubt  rather  than  in  those  of  the  average 
normal  experience,  for  it  teaches  us  prudence  and 
care  in  the  classification  of  those  cases  which  may 
not  require  the  treatment  that  rough  medical  stand- 
ards would  misjudge  and  maltreat.  But  no  matter 
how  clear  the  criterion  is  to  the  expert  physician 
and  psychologist  for  distinguishing  the  normal  from 
the  abnormal,  —  and  it  is  not  always  clear  to  either 


68    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

of  them,  —  it  is  not  one  that  can  be  made  easily 
apparent  to  the  naive  intellect,  and  hence  skepticism 
always  has  an  advantage  when  suggesting  caution 
or  doubt  about  human  judgment  or  the  interpretation 
of  experience. 

When  we  come  to  consider  judgments  based  upon 
residual  phenomena  and  arguing  for  extra-organic 
causes,  especially  of  a  certain  specific  kind,  we  can 
appreciate  the  strength  of  the  skeptical  plea  for  the 
extent  to  which  subjective  influences  must  teach  us 
prudence  and  cautiousness.  The  truth  of  this  will 
come  home  to  all  of  us  when  we  are  asked  to  consider 
the  appeal  to  those  extra-organic  agencies  with  which 
we  are  not  familiar  in  ordinary  life  at  all  and  when 
the  defence  of  them  disregards  the  existence  and 
nature  of  the  abnormal  altogether.  In  normal  ex- 
perience the  mere  statistical  relation  between  the 
familiar  and  the  exceptional  is  a  sufficient  guide  for 
practical  life,  since  it  is  a  mere  inductive  question 
of  the  chances  or  probabilities  for  one  or  the  other 
type  of  experience  in  selecting  which  shall  determine 
our  conduct.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  invocation 
of  causes,  external  or  internal,  which  are  not  familiar 
and  which  do  not  have  any  systematic  relation  to  our 
normal  and  practical  life,  it  is  a  matter  of  some 
importance  that  our  evidence  for  exceptional  causes 
should  be  commensurate  in  quality  and  quantity  with 
the  extent  of  the  conclusion  drawn.  Hence  the  value 
of  knowing  the  nature  and  limits  of  assured  judg- 
ment in  our  normal  life  and  the  relation  of  the  ab- 
normal to  it.  The  criterion  may  not  be  a  simple 
one,  but  such  as  it  is  it  must  suffice  to  justify  some 


INTERPRETING    FUNCTIONS  69 

measure  of  prevision  in  the  occurrence  or  expectation 
of  events,  and  mark  that  measure  of  constancy  in 
the  occurrence  and  association  of  different  phenomena 
that  will  place  us  beyond  the  casual  in  the  judgment 
of  things.  We  must  have  some  definite  conception 
of  an  order  not  determined  by  the  caprice  of  our 
own  actions,  and  representing  a  more  or  less  fixed 
relation  to  an  order  that  conditions  our  natural  de- 
velopment instead  of  an  order  which  our  minds  create 
against  the  forces  upon  which  we  depend  for  normal 
growth,  mental  and  physical.  We  have  to  be  ex- 
tremely cautious  about  estimating  reality  by  retro- 
spections and  expectations  that  are  not  read  from 
the  nature  of  the  passing  moment.  We  may  be 
equally  deceived  by  too  much  attention  to  the  phe- 
nomenal movement  of  the  present  experience.  Hence, 
between  this  Scilla  and  Charybdis,  between  the  past 
and  the  future  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  both 
and  the  present  moment  on  the  other,  we  have  to 
steer  through  dangerous  narrows,  and  by  a  judicious 
combination  of  memory  and  verified  inferences  se- 
cure that  standard  of  constancy  and  change  which 
will  measure  in  proper  balance  the  claims  of  expec- 
tation and  doubt. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MEMOEY 

I  have  assumed  in  previous  discussions  that  the 
functions  of  memory  in  our  knowledge  were  suffi- 
cientlj  clear  not  to  need  explanation  for  the  pur- 
poses of  those  analyses  of  elementary  processes.  In 
one  type  of  the  classifying  judgment  memory  is 
indispensable  as  a  factor  of  it,  but  a  technical  knowl- 
edge of  this  part  which  it  plays  was  not  necessary 
for  the  comprehension  of  the  process  concerned. 
Hence  I  have  postponed  all  examination  of  its  nature 
and  scope  until  the  present  chapter. 

In  common  usage  memory  is  a  very  comprehensive 
term,  and  so  comprises  all  those  phenomena  which 
are  associated  with  the  preservation,  the  recall,  and 
the  recognition  of  past  experience.  It  is  sometimes 
used  to  name  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  functions, 
according  as  the  emergency  requires  it.  Sometimes, 
in  the  more  technical  discussions  of  psychology,  it 
stands  only  for  the  fact  of  recognizing  the  past  after 
its  recall.  Probably  the  reason  for  this  technical 
limitation  of  the  term  is  the  fact  that  this  recog- 
nition is  the  only  thing  of  which  we  are  directly 
conscious  in  our  relation  to  past  experience.  But 
however  this  may  be,  I  mean  here  to  accept  its  wider 
common  import  and  so  to  use  the  term  to  include 
and  describe  all  the  mental  and  possibly  other  phe- 

70 


MEMORY  71 

nomena  connected  with  the  retention,  the  reproduc- 
tion, and  the  recognition  of  past  experience.  It 
would  only  confuse  matters  in  a  general  discussion 
to  insist  upon  limiting  the  import  of  the  term  to 
direct  consciousness  of  the  past  when  recalled,  as 
this  would  not  onlj  require  us  to  deviate  fundamen- 
tally from  general  usage,  but  would  also  apparently 
lead  to  the  omission  of  phenomena  quite  as  important 
to  abnormal,  or  even  to  normal,  psychology  as  the 
more  circumscribed  fact  of  recognition. 

Memory  in  this  broad  sense  is  the  faculty  for  con- 
serving, recalling,  and  identifying  past  experience  in 
the  service  of  judgment.  It  conditions  that  act  of 
judgment  which  compares  the  past  and  present  and 
determines  the  measure  of  unity  and  persistence 
which  various  phenomena  have.  But  it  has  also  a 
separate  interest  for  the  present  work  in  the  nature 
and  range  of  its  capacity  for  supplying  material 
in  various  abnormal  phenomena  of  the  mind  and 
for  its  relation  to  the  problems  of  residual  psychol- 
ogy. In  our  ordinary  experience  we  seem  to  think 
it  much  more  limited  in  its  functions  and  productions 
than  is  actually  the  fact.  The  reason  for  this  prob- 
ably is  that  we  disregard,  and  hence  easily  forget, 
that  part  of  its  action  and  reproductions  that  have  no 
special  interest  for  the  chief  object  of  attention.  We 
easily  forget  what  we  are  not  interested  in,  and  hence 
many  things  lie  in  the  fringe  of  consciousness,  re- 
called by  memory,  which  we  neglect  as  without  impor- 
tance to  the  main  thesis  of  thought.  Consequently 
memory  seems  to  have  that  limited  range  expressed 
by  the  contents  of  what  is  relevant  to  the  present 


72    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

object  of  consciousness.  But  its  range  of  action  is 
much  larger,  and  this  fact  makes  it  imperative  to 
examine  it  with  this  fact  in  view,  as  a  means  of 
throwing  light  on  questions  that  are  unnecessarily 
mysterious  to  many  persons. 

As  indicated,  however,  this  general  meaning  is  so 
comprehensive  that  it  does  not  clearly  appear  in  the 
term  what  its  several  functions  are.  We  must  ana- 
lyze it  to  find  them.  Consequently  I  find  it  con- 
venient to  divide  the  field  ordinarily  covered  by  the 
term  memory  into  (1)  Retention  or  Conservation, 
(2)  Reproduction  or  Recall,  generally  named  Asso- 
ciation, (3)  Representation  or  Imagination,  and  (4) 
Recognition  or  Identification.  Each  of  these  com- 
prises a  distinct  class  of  phenomena  or  functions, 
though  related  in  all  cases  to  the  same  fundamental 
material  of  experience.  I  shall  take  up  each  of  these 
in  its  order. 

1.  Retention 

Retention  does  not  represent  any  known  act  or 
process  of  mental  agency.  It  is  only  a  name  for 
the  fact  that  in  some  way  past  experience  is  kept 
for  recall  or  within  the  reach  of  consciousness  under 
the  appropriate  laws  of  association.  It  has  an  anal- 
ogy in  the  persistence  of  physical  impressions  on 
objects,  but  only  an  analogy.  It  is  a  purely  con- 
jectured fact  from  the  circumstance  that  we  can 
consciously  command  past  experience  by  recall,  and 
retention  is  merely  a  name  for  the  condition  of  past 
experience  in  the  interval  between  its  original  occur- 
rence and  its  recall. 


MEMORY  73 

How  retention  takes  place  we  do  not  know.  There 
are  plenty  of  physiological  theories  which  endeavor 
to  explain  it,  but  they  are  perfectly  futile,  owing 
to  our  complete  ignorance  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  brain  is  supposed  to  behave  itself  in  the  record- 
ing of  experience.  Antiquity  compared  the  memory 
in  this  respect  to  a  wax  tablet  or  a  roll  on  which  was 
written  the  thoughts  of  a  writer.  Such  a  roll  was 
folded  up  and  opened  for  reading.  This  is  a  very 
pretty  analogy,  but  it  cannot  seriously  represent 
anything  more.  It  is  the  same  with  physiological 
theories  representing  retention  as  "  impressions  "  on 
the  brain  or  its  cells.  This  is  only  a  little  more 
obscure  analogy  than  the  ordinary  wax  tablet  in- 
stance. But  we  know  absolutely  nothing  about  the 
manner  in  which  impressions  on  sense  affect  the  brain. 
The  molecular  activity  of  which  we  speak  so  glibly 
in  reference  to  the  brain  is  purely  conjectural.  I 
do  not  question  it  as  a  fact,  but  we  do  not  know 
what  it  is,  and  all  talk  about  its  explanation  of  re- 
tention is  only  the  result  of  the  demand  to  offer 
an  explanatory  theory  of  the  phenomenon  instead 
of  confessing  our  complete  ignorance  in  the  case. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  question  such  theories,  but  to 
ask  for  the  evidence  for  them  and  for  the  grounds 
of  their  explanatory  character.  I  reject  them,  there- 
fore, not  as  necessarily  false,  but  as  useless,  if  true, 
and  as  insufficiently  supported  to  make  them  intelli- 
gible. I  simply  prefer  to  say  that  I  know  absolutely 
nothing  about  how  retention  is  possible,  and  that 
I  am  content  with  the  fact,  in  so  far  as  the  term 
describes  or  names  a  conjectured  circumstance.     Did 


74    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

we  know  more  about  what  the  fact  is  we  might  in- 
dulge in  theoretical  explanations,  but  we  are  quite 
as  ignorant  of  what  retention  is  as  a  fact  as  we  can 
be  about  the  neural  conditions  supposed  to  explain  it. 
I  do  not  mean  by  this  profession  of  ignorance, 
which  I  wish  to  extend  to  all  others,  physiologists 
and  psychologists  alike,  that  the  phenomenon  is  not 
explicable  by  brain  facts.  I  would  even  go  farther 
and  agree  that  retention  must  have  some  relation  to 
neural  laws  just  as  consciousness  has.  But  while  I 
grant  that  retention  is  as  much  a  brain  phenomenon 
as  all  other  mental  facts,  I  am  not  impressed  by  that 
consideration  to  admit  that  I  know  how  it  effects  such 
a  result.  I  am  merely  contending  that  there  is  no 
use  to  press  an  explanation  that  does  not  explain 
as  we  wish  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained.  The 
reason  that  we  do  not  like  to  admit  ignorance  in 
such  matters  is  the  fact  that  the  admission  is  intel*- 
preted  as  granting  any  one  the  right  to  put  forward 
any  other  hypothesis  with  impunity.  This  right, 
however,  I  do  not  concede.  We  have  to  ask  of  all 
hypotheses  of  explanation,  whether  physical  or  men- 
tal, physiological  or  psychological,  how  the  fact 
supposed  can  explain  the  phenomena,  or  whether  we 
are  familiar  with  such  a  causal  agency  in  other  phe- 
nomena than  those  in  mind.  When  we  press  theories 
of  explanation  we  must  first  know  that  the  concep- 
tion used  is  a  fact  for  our  experience  in  some  form, 
and  it  must  present  some  intelligible  and  familiar 
fact  suggestive  of  an  intelligible  relation  between  it 
and  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained.  Otherwise  it 
Is  a  gratuitous  assumption,  and  is  advanced  to  es- 


i 


MEMORY  76 

cape  the  reproach  of  an  ignorance  which  the  common 
man  does  not  perceive.  But  there  is  no  legitimate 
excuse  for  checking  the  inchnation  to  abuse  that  pro- 
fession of  ignorance  in  theories  quite  as  absurd  as 
that  which  actually  conceals  this  want  of  knowledge. 
In  other  words,  there  is  no  reason  for  revenging 
the  impunity  of  other  persons  by  the  pretence  of 
knowledge  in  ourselves.  Hence  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  I  think  we  have  no  rational  explanation  of 
retention  as  a  phenomenon  of  memory,  and  I  repeat 
also  that  I  think  we  do  not  even  know  exactly  what 
the  fact  is  which  has  to  be  explained. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  have  any  explanation  of 
it.  The  importance  of  retention  in  the  scheme  of 
knowledge  does  not  consist  in  explaining  it  or  in 
having  a  theory  about  it,  but  in  another  circumstance 
associated  with  it  and  which  affects  its  relation  to 
the  problem  of  supernormal  capacities  of  the  mind. 
I  refer  to  its  compass,  or  the  extent  to  which  the 
mind  conserves  its  original  impressions.  If  we  re- 
tain in  the  mind  only  what  we  recall,  the  compass 
of  retention  or  memory  is  very  small,  and  is  limited 
to  such  facts  as  we  actually  use  in  our  mental  life. 
But  there  is  evidence  that  the  compass  of  retention 
extends  far  beyond  what  we  actually  recall  and  use. 
In  fact,  the  probability  is  that  absolutely  every  im- 
pression ever  made  upon  the  sensorium  is  recorded 
and  available  for  conscious  or  unconscious  recall. 
Most  of  them  cannot  be  recalled  at  will,  but  they 
may  recur  in  delirium  or  abnormal  states  to  show 
that  they  are  there,  though  not  recognizable.  I 
shall  quote  instances  that  go  to  prove  the  measure 


f 


76    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

of  this  compass.  They  show  such  remarkable  powers 
of  retention  that  they  would  be  incredible  were  they 
not  so  common  and  some  other  conception  of  them 
so  necessary,  unless  this  of  an  unlimited  retention 
be  admitted. 

The  first  instance  is  the  classical  one  mentioned 
by  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  quoted  from  Cole- 
ridge's Literaria  Biographia.  "  A  young  woman  of 
four  or  five  and  twenty,  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  was  seized  with  a  nervous  fever ;  during  which, 
according  to  the  asseverations  of  all  the  priests  and 
monks  of  the  neighborhood,  she  became  possessed, 
and,  as  it  appeared,  by  a  very  learned  devil.  She 
continued  incessantly  talking  Latin,  Greek,  and  He- 
brew, in  very  pompous  tones,  and  with  most  distinct 
enunciation.  Sheets  full  of  her  ravings  were  taken 
down  from  her  own  mouth,  and  were  found  to  con- 
sist of  sentences,  coherent  and  intelligible  each  for 
itself,  but  with  little  or  no  connection  with  each  other. 
Of  the  Hebrew,  a  small  portion  only  could  be  traced 
to  the  Bible,  the  remainder  seemed  to  be  in  the  Rab- 
binical dialect."  A  careful  investigation  of  the  case 
by  a  physician,  who  had  much  difficulty  in  ascertain- 
ing the  girl's  antecedents,  revealed  the  fact  that  in 
another  city  the  girl  had  been  charitably  cared  for 
by  a  Protestant  pastor  from  the  time  she  was  nine 
years  old  until  his  death,  a  few  years  later.  It  was 
also  found  that  this  pastor  was  in  the  habit  "  for 
years  of  walking  up  and  down  a  passage  of  his  house 
into  which  the  kitchen  door  opened,  and  of  reading 
to  himself  with  a  loud  voice,  from  his  favorite  books. 
A  considerable  number  of  these  were  still  in  the  niece's 


MEMORY  77 

possession.  She  stated  that  he  was  a  very  learned 
man,  and  a  great  Hebraist.  Among  the  books  were 
found  a  collection  of  Rabbinical  writings,  together 
with  several  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  fathers ;  and 
the  physician  succeeded  in  identifying  so  many  pas- 
sages with  those  taken  down  at  the  young  woman's 
bedside  that  no  doubt  could  remain  in  any  rational 
mind  concerning  the  true  origin  of  the  impressions 
made  on  her  nervous  system." 

Usually  we  remember  what  is  intelligible  to  us, 
but  here  is  an  instance  of  retaining  sentences  and 
passages  which  were  wholly  unintelligible  and  which 
were  indirectly  heard  in  the  midst  of  other  duties. 

Dr.  Abercrombie  relates  a  number  of  cases  in 
which  these  latent  and  submerged  memories  were 
brought  to  the  surface  by  a  sort  of  accident,  and 
that  showed  there  is  no  definite  correlation  between 
what  is  retained  and  what  is  recalled.  "  A  man, 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Abernethy,  had  been  bom  in 
France,  but  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life 
in  England,  and,  for  many  years,  had  entirely  lost 
the  habit  of  speaking  French.  But  when  under  the 
care  of  Mr.  Abernethy,  on  account  of  the  effects  of 
an  injury  of  the  head,  he  always  spoke  French.  A 
similar  case  occurred  in  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  of 
a  man  who  was  in  a  state  of  stupor  in  consequence 
of  an  injury  of  the  head.  On  his  partial  recovery, 
he  spoke  a  language  which  nobody  in  the  hospital 
understood,  but  which  was  soon  ascertained  to  be 
Welsh.  It  was  then  discovered  that  he  had  been 
thirty  years  absent  from  Wales,  and,  before  the  ac- 
cident, had  entirely  forgotten  his  native  language. 


78    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

On  his  perfect  recovery,  he  completely  forgot  his 
Welsh  again,  and  recovered  the  English  language. 
A  lady  mentioned  by  Dr.  Pritchard,  when  in  a 
state  of  delirium,  spoke  a  language  which  nobody 
about  her  understood,  but  which  was  also  discovered 
to  be  Welsh.  None  of  her  friends  could  form  any 
conception  of  the  manner  in  which  she  had  become 
acquainted  with  that  language;  but,  after  much 
inquiry,  it  was  discovered  that  in  her  childhood  she 
had  a  nurse,  a  native  of  a  district  on  the  coast  of 
Brittany,  the  dialect  of  which  is  closely  analogous 
to  Welsh.  The  lady  at  that  time  learnt  a  good  deal 
of  this  dialect,  but  had  entirely  forgotten  it  for  many 
years  before  this  attack  of  fever." 

Here  we  have  the  resurrection  of  experiences  which 
would  have  appeared  to  have  been  wholly  obliterated 
but  for  the  accident  of  disease,  but  which,  when  re- 
called as  they  were,  indicate  the  retention  of  much 
that  is  not  normally  recallable.  The  following  in- 
stance is  also  narrated  by  Dr.  Abercrombie,  but  he 
is  unable  to  give  the  authority  for  it.  The  recall 
in  this  case  is  not  due  to  accident  of  any  kind,  but 
to  the  associative  influence  of  a  place. 

"  A  lady,  in  the  last  stage  of  a  chronic  disease, 
was  carried  from  London  to  a  lodging  in  the  coun- 
try; there  her  infant  daughter  was  taken  to  visit 
her,  and,  after  a  short  interview,  carried  back  to 
town.  The  lady  died  a  few  days  after,  and  the 
daughter  grew  up  without  any  recollection  of  her 
mother  till  she  was  of  mature  age.  At  this  time  she 
happened  to  be  taken  into  the  room  in  which  her 
mother  died,  without  knowing  it  to  have  been  so; 


MEMORY  79 

she  started  on  entering  it,  and,  when  a  friend  who 
was  along  with  her  asked  the  cause  of  her  agitation, 
replied,  '  I  have  a  distinct  impression  of  having  been 
in  this  room  before,  and  that  a  lady,  who  lay  in 
that  corner,  and  seemed  very  ill,  leaned  over  me  and 
wept.'  " 

Dr.  Carpenter,  in  his  "  Mental  Physiology,"  men- 
tions a  most  interesting  case  similar  to  that  of  Dr. 
Abercrombie  in  that  it  was  local  influences  that  re- 
called a  long-forgotten  incident.  Dr.  Carpenter 
stands  sponsor  for  the  incident  as  given  him  by  an 
acquaintance. 

"  Several  years  ago,  the  Rev.  S.  Hansard,  now 
rector  of  Bethnal  Green,  was  doing  clerical  duty 
for  a  time  at  Hurstmonceaux  in  Sussex;  and  while 
there  he  one  day  went  over  with  a  party  of  friends 
to  Pevensey  Castle,  which  he  did  not  remember  to 
have  ever  previously  visited.  As  he  approached  the 
gateway,  he  became  conscious  of  a  very  vivid  im- 
pression of  having  seen  it  before ;  and  he  '  seemed 
to  himself  to  see '  not  only  the  gateway  itself,  but 
donkeys  beneath  the  arch,  and  people  on  the  top  of 
it.  His  conviction  that  he  must  have  visited  the 
castle  on  some  former  occasion  —  although  he  had 
neither  the  slightest  remembrance  of  such  a  visit,  nor 
any  knowledge  of  having  ever  been  in  the  neigh- 
borhood previously  to  his  residence  at  Hurstmon- 
ceaux —  made  him  inquire  from  his  mother  if  she 
could  throw  any  light  on  the  matter.  She  at  once 
informed  him  that,  being  in  that  part  of  the  country 
when  he  was  about  eighteen  months  old,  she  had  gone 
over  with  a  large  party,  and  had  taken  him  in  the 


80    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

pannier  of  a  donkey;  that  the  elders  of  the  party, 
having  brought  lunch  with  them,  had  eaten  it  on 
the  roof  of  the  gateway,  where  they  would  have  been 
seen  from  below,  whilst  he  had  been  left  on  the 
ground  with  the  attendants  and  donkeys." 

I  have  myself  had  a  somewhat  similar  experience. 
I  had  often  recalled  a  picture  of  standing  in  the 
barn-yard  of  my  home  and  looking  through  a  shed 
and  corn-crib.  But  I  had  never  happened  to  men- 
tion the  fact  until  we  were  building  a  new  bam  when 
I  was  twenty-three  years  of  age.  I  began  one  day 
at  this  work  to  say  that  I  remembered  when  this  shed 
and  crib  were  built,  and  mentioned  the  incidents  which 
I  have  just  indicated  above.  My  father  stopped  his 
work  and  watched  me  tell  the  story,  and  when  I  had 
finished,  recognizing  that  I  was  correct  as  to  the 
main  fact,  which  was  that  of  seeing  the  carpenters 
nailing  on  the  laths,  he  named  the  year  in  which  the 
building  took  place,  and  this  was  when  I  was  but 
two  years  old.  There  had  been  no  opportunity  for 
any  similar  incident  after  the  date  of  building  the 
shed. 

Of  the  same  type  as  the  incidents  given  by  Dr. 
Abercrombie  are  some  narrated  by  Dr.  Rush  of 
Philadelphia  and  quoted  by  Dr.  Carpenter.  "  An 
Italian  gentleman,"  says  Dr.  Rush,  "  who  died  of 
yellow  fever  in  New  York,  in  the  beginning  of  his 
illness  spoke  English,  in  the  middle  of  it  French, 
but  on  the  day  of  his  death  only  Italian.  A  Lutheran 
clergyman  of  Philadelphia  informed  Dr.  R.  that 
Germans  and  Swedes,  of  whom  he  had  a  considerable 
number  in  his  congregation,  when  near  death  always 


MEMORY  81 

prayed  in  their  native  languages,  though  some  of 
them,  he  was  confident,  had  not  spoken  these  lan- 
guages for  fifty  or  sixty  years." 

Crystal  vision  often  serves  as  a  stimulus  in  certain 
cases  of  peculiar  temperament  to  the  resurgence  of 
long-forgotten  memories.  Miss  Goodrich-Freer, 
known  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research  as  Miss  X.,  has  recounted  a  large 
number  of  incidents  in  which  the  crystal  was  the 
instrument  of  such  recall.  They  illustrate  the  latency 
of  the  most  trivial  incidents  of  experience.  I  quote 
the  following  statements  from  her  own  account  of 
them. 

"  Some  friends  coolly  sent  me  a  letter  addressed 
'  Dr.  Henderson  '  (I  do  not  give  the  real  name),  with 
orders  to  look  for  the  rest  in  the  crystal.  I  looked 
and  was  rather  staggered  to  read,  '  Dr.  Henderson, 
Taunton  Gaol.'  I  could  assign  no  grounds  for  such 
a  libel,  but  on  consulting  a  relative  as  to  what  Hen- 
dersons we  had  ever  known,  she  remembered  that 
amongst  others  '  there  was  a  chaplain  of  that  name 
at  Taunton  Gaol,  but  long  before  your  time.'  In 
my  pre-crystal  days  I  would  have  sworn  that  I  had 
never  heard  of  this  chaplain." 

"  I  saw  in  the  crystal  a  pool  of  blood  (as  it  seemed 
to  me)  lying  on  the  pavement  at  the  corner  of  a 
terrace  close  to  my  home.  This  suggested  nothing 
to  me.  Then  I  remembered  that  I  had  passed  over 
that  spot  in  the  course  of  a  walk  of  a  few  hundred 
yards  home  from  the  circulating  library;  and  that, 
the  street  being  empty,  I  had  been  looking  into  the 
books  as   I   walked.     Afterwards   I  found  that  my 


83    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

boots  and  the  bottom  of  mj  dress  were  stained  with 
red  paint,  which  I  must  have  walked  through  unob- 
servingly  during  the  short  trajet  just  described. 
I  cannot  tell  which  part  of  me  it  was  that  mistook 
paint  for  blood,  —  whether  it  was  my  misinterpreta- 
tion of  the  crystal  picture,  or  a  mistake  in  the  pic- 
ture itself." 

This  is  an  instance  of  recalling  an  unobserved, 
that  is,  a  consciously  unobserved  fact,  and  suggests 
that  even  our  subliminal  sensations  may  be  as  effec- 
tively recorded  as  our  conscious  sensations.  The 
next  two  instances  are  remarkable  in  this  same  re- 
spect. 

"  I  saw  in  the  crystal  an  intimate  friend  waving 
to  me  from  her  carriage.  I  observed  that  her  hair, 
which  had  hung  down  her  back  when  I  last  saw  her, 
was  now  put  up  in  young  lady  fashion.  Most  cer- 
tainly I  had  not  consciously  seen  the  carriage,  the 
look  of  which  I  knew  very  well.  But  next  day  I 
called  on  my  friend,  was  reproached  by  her  for  not 
observing  her  as  she  passed,  and  perceived  that  she 
had  altered  her  hair  in  the  way  which  the  crystal 
had  shown." 

"  It  was  suggested  to  me  one  day  last  September 
that  I  should  look  into  the  crystal  with  the  intention 
of  seeing  words,  which  had  at  that  time  formed  no 
part  of  my  experience.  I  was  immediately  rewarded 
by  the  sight  of  what  was  obviously  a  newspaper  an- 
nouncement, in  the  type  familiar  to  all  in  the  first 
column  of  the  Times.  It  reported  the  death  of  a 
lady,  at  one  time  a  very  frequent  visitor  in  my 
circle,  and  very  intimate  with  some  of  my  nearest 


MEMORY  83 

friends,  an  announcement,  therefore,  which,  had  I 
consciously  seen  it,  would  have  interested  me  con- 
siderably. I  related  my  vision  at  breakfast,  quot- 
ing name,  date,  place,  and  an  allusion  to  '  a  long 
period  of  suffering '  borne  by  the  deceased  lady,  and 
added  that  I  was  sure  that  I  had  not  heard  any 
report  of  her  illness,  or  even,  for  some  months,  any 
mention  of  her  likely  to  suggest  such  an  hallucina- 
tion. I  was,  however,  aware  that  I  had  the  day 
before  taken  up  the  first  sheet  of  the  Times,  but 
was  interrupted  before  I  had  consciously  read  any 
announcement  of  death." 

Accepting  these  incidents  as  properly  reported, 
and  not  involving  the  intromission  of  elements  after- 
ward into  the  crystal  picture,  they  necessitate  the 
assumption  of  retaining  subliminal  impressions  as 
the  only  alternative  to  much  more  remarkable  hy- 
potheses. Miss  Goodrich-Freer  narrates  many  other 
similar  experiences  with  the  crystal  representing  the 
resurrection  of  lost  memories  and  in  some  cases  of 
subliminal  impressions,  but  I  cannot  quote  more  of 
them  here.  Readers  may  go  to  her  records  in  the 
sources  named  above. 

In  illustration  of  this  phenomenon  of  recalling 
subliminal  impressions,  I  may  refer  to  some  experi- 
ments of  Dr.  Boris  Sidis.  He  has  found  in  cases 
of  anaesthesia  that  impressions  not  consciously  per- 
ceived may  be  made  to  appear  in  hallucinations, 
showing  the  memory  of  stimuli  not  apperceived  at 
the  time  of  their  impression.  The  same  experi- 
menter, in  a  case  of  secondary  personality  due  to 
an   accident,   found   the  patient's   dreams   unrecog- 


84    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH    BORDERLAND 

nized  in  his  waking  state,  but  recognized  by  the 
subject's  parents,  who  said  they  were  incidents  in  his 
earlier  hfe  in  another  and  neighboring  State.  Sim- 
ilar phenomena  appear  to  occur  in  dreams  quite 
frequently. 

Innumerable  instances,  such  as  I  have  quoted,  could 
be  supplied  to  show  that  retention  seems  to  extend 
over  the  whole  field  of  impressions,  normal  and  sub- 
conscious. But  such  as  I  have  indicated  suffice  to 
show  what  the  probabilities  are  for  such  as  happen 
not  to  be  recalled.  The  instances  quoted  show  this 
retention  under  circumstances  so  improbable  to  our 
ordinary  experience  that  we  can  hardly  question  its 
extension  over  all  impressions,  and  that  once  granted, 
we  have  a  measure  of  those  startling  phenomena 
which  present  the  appearance  of  an  outside  source 
in  abnormal  and  supernormal  mental  phenomena,  and 
also  an  explanation  of  the  resourcefulness  of  sub- 
liminal reproductions  of  the  past.  I  cannot  make 
this  matter  clear  at  present,  but  I  refer  to  it  in  order 
to  anticipate  the  use  to  be  made  of  so  capacious  a 
power  as  retention  when  facing  the  more  complex 
phenomena  of  multiplex  personality,  and  its  mate- 
rial resources. 

2.  Reprodtcction 

Retention  is  an  unconscious  affair.  So  also  Is 
Reproduction  or  Association,  as  it  has  often  been 
called  by  psychologists.  It  Is  the  process  by  which 
the  past  is  recalled  to  consciousness  and  acts  accord- 
ing to  certain  definite  laws.  The  term  "  Association  " 
has  also  the  comprehensive  meaning  of  connection 


MEMORY  86 

In  present  consciousness,  and  for  that  reason  is  per- 
haps not  so  clear  in  its  import  as  Reproduction, 
which  better  defines  the  actual  process,  while  "  Asso- 
ciation "  implies  present  synthesis.  But  as  usage  has 
sanctified  the  use  of  the  term  for  Reproduction,  I 
shall  not  distinguish  between  them  here.  The  act, 
however,  is  one  which  mediates  between  retention  and 
recognition,  and  so  is  the  act  by  which  facts  of  the 
past  are  brought  up  to  present  consciousness.  There 
would  be  no  occasion  to  take  any  account  of  it  were 
it  not  that  it  represents  certain  important  limitations 
of  the  mind  in  the  control  and  management  of  ex- 
perience. These  will  appear  in  the  explanation  of 
its  laws. 

A  simple  illustration  of  what  is  meant  by  repro- 
duction will  be  found  in  such  examples  as  the  fol- 
lowing. I  see  a  friend  whom  I  have  not  seen  for 
years.  At  once  some  incident  in  our  common  lives 
springs  into  consciousness  and  may  become  the  sub- 
ject of  conversation  and  additional  reminiscences.  I 
first  think  of  the  house  in  which  we  met.  This  re- 
calls the  topic  of  conversation  which  was,  let  us  say, 
politics,  and  this  again  suggests  forms  of  govern- 
ment, which  might  suggest  the  doctrine  of  Aristotle, 
and  so  on  indefinitely.  We  are  all  familiar  with  this 
process,  but  are  not  so  familiar  with  the  laws  which 
regulate  the  order  of  reproduction,  and  limit  it  to 
certain  relevant  data  of  memory.  These  will  throw 
light  upon  the  normal  systematization  of  knowledge 
and  upon  the  selection  of  material  recalled  to  suit 
the  situation. 

There  are  certain  general  characteristics  of  the 


86    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

whole  process  which  should  be  noticed,  or  if  ''  char- 
acteristics "  is  not  the  right  term,  we  may  say  con- 
ditions which  serve  as  the  basis  upon  which  the  sev- 
eral laws  rest.  They  may  be  enumerated  as  (1) 
a  quality  about  present  states  attracting  the  past 
and  connecting  it  with  the  present,  (2)  a  quality 
about  past  experiences  making  these  revivable  in  a 
relevant  relation,  (3)  relations  of  interest  and  at- 
tention between  both  classes  of  ideas,  and  (4)  accom- 
paniment of  selection  and  dissociation  in  regard  to 
certain  elements  of  experience.  These  conditions  are 
meant  to  note  the  fact  that  only  certain  types  of 
recollections  are  orderly  revivable  in  normal  experi- 
ence, and  that  there  are  special  facts  about  them  that 
make  them  so,  and  suggest  the  need  of  discovering 
the  principles  on  which  the  process  is  based  and  by 
which  it  is  regulated.  I  shall  proceed  to  outline  these 
and  explain  their  influence  on  the  normal  stream  of 
conscious  recollection. 

The  one  general  law  regulating  reproduction  or 
reproductive  association  has  been  called  the  Law  of 
Redintegration  by  Sir  William  Hamilton.  In  our 
present  experience,  sensation,  judgment,  and  infer- 
ence, there  is  a  complex  whole  before  consciousness. 
Suppose  I  am  looking  at  a  landscape.  It  consists 
of  a  number  of  points  of  interest,  the  hills  and  val- 
leys, houses,  trees,  rocks,  animal  life,  streams,  etc. 
The  association  of  these  together  in  the  present  con- 
sciousness I  have  called  a  synthesis,  and  I  may  also 
call  it  integration  as  indication  of  the  fact  that  the 
mind  looks  at  such  an  experience  as  a  whole,  as  a 
collective   group   of  incidents   or  related  facts   con- 


MEMORY  87 

stituting  a  single  and  organic  totality.  A  sound, 
touch,  smell,  or  other  sensation  may  represent  also 
a  more  or  less  complexus  of  incidents,  though  per- 
haps less  miscellaneous  and  less  numerous  than  vis- 
ion, until  after  mnemonic  association  has  added  to 
its  contents.  But  a  measure  of  integration  is  involved 
in  all  of  them,  a  complexity  that  will  increase  with 
the  added  elements  of  reproduction  in  later  experi- 
ence. Redintegration  then  will  be  the  restoration  of 
this  whole  to  consciousness  through  its  recall.  Thus, 
if  any  part  of  a  past  experience  comes  to  conscious- 
ness, say  the  perception  of  a  friend,  the  whole  of 
the  incidents  associated  with  any  particular  experi- 
ence involving  the  presence  of  that  friend  will  tend 
to  be  recalled.  Hence  I  shall  define  the  Law  of 
Redintegration  as  follows:  Redintegration  is  the  re- 
productive tendency  of  the  mind  to  restore  the  past 
collective  experience  in  its  totality.  Hamilton's 
formulation  of  it  is :  "  Those  thoughts  suggest  each 
other  which  had  previously  constituted  parts  of  the 
same  entire  or  total  act  of  cognition.  Now  to  the 
same  entire  or  total  act  belong,  as  integral  or  con- 
stituent parts,  in  the  first  place,  those  thoughts  which 
arose  at  the  same  time,  or  in  immediate  consecution; 
and  in  the  second,  those  thoughts  which  are  bound 
up  into  one  by  their  mutual  affinity." 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  law  that  there  is  any  ten- 
dency for  the  whole  of  the  past  to  be  recalled,  but 
only  the  whole  of  that  part  which  constituted  a 
separate  and  individual  whole  of  its  own.  If  any 
tendency  existed  for  the  whole  stream  of  the  past  to 
be  reproduced,  thought  would  be  intolerable.     But 


88    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

it  happens  that,  in  the  formation  of  individual  wholes 
in  thought,  there  is  an  economic  tendency  of  the  mind 
to  select  those  groups  of  facts  which  belong  to- 
gether for  some  reason,  whether  this  association  is 
one  of  time,  place,  or  interest.  The  concentration 
of  attention  is  the  selective  agency  or  influence  in 
determining  what  facts  of  sensation  shall  constitute 
the  whole  likely  to  be  recalled.  What  is  called  the 
compass  of  attention  is  the  measure  of  this  integra- 
tion, and  so  determines  the  liabilities  of  redintegra- 
tion. By  the  compass  of  attention  we  mean  the  num- 
ber of  objects  which  it  can  distinctly  cognize  at  a 
time,  the  definite  instant  of  perception,  and  without 
using  any  memory  or  movement  of  attention  to  in- 
crease that  compass.  The  eff^ect  of  this  on  what  we 
remember  and  recall  will  be  seen  again.  For  the 
present  I  am  interested  only  in  asserting  the  fact 
that  it  limits  the  total  that  will  naturally  be  recalled. 
Attention  varies  with  interest,  and  interest  selects 
those  facts  of  experience  which  receive  special  notice, 
and  so  tend  to  obtain  fixity  in  memory  and  recall. 
It  serves  as  the  agency  for  breaking  the  connection 
between  some  part  of  a  present  experience  and  that 
which  is  of  importance  to  the  mind,  either  transiently 
or  permanently.  The  consequence  is  that  interest 
and  attention  divide  up  the  complex  mass  or  stream 
of  conscious  experiences  into  classified  wholes,  accord- 
ing to  their  relation  to  the  main  end  of  thought  and 
action,  and  redintegration  will  tend  to  resort  those 
which  have  a  bearing  upon  those  ends.  Hence  there 
is  no  special  tendency  in  the  normal  mind  to  recall 
the  total  mass  of  events  in  the  stream,  but  only  the 


MEMORY  89 

total  which  was  an  object  of  attention  or  of  in- 
terest. 

The  law  which  is  the  complement  of  Redintegra- 
tion, and  which  represents  this  tendency  to  separate 
certain  experiences  from  the  stream  of  consciousness 
that  are  not  needed  in  the  main  interests  of  the  mind 
may  be  called  that  of  Disintegration  or  Dissociation. 
This  will  require  separate  treatment,  and  it  is  referred 
to  here  only  for  the  purpose  of  recognizing  a  con- 
trary tendency  to  that  of  Redintegration,  or  perhaps 
better,  a  limiting  influence  on  this  redintegration, 
an  economic  device  in  mental  development  for  select- 
ing appropriate  matter  of  thought  and  action. 

The  Law  of  Redintegration  can  be  divided  into 
a  number  of  subordinate  laws  which  explain  individual 
associations,  and  to  understand  the  peculiar  tendency 
of  the  mind  in  recalling  the  past  it  will  be  necessary 
to  notice  these  divisions  briefly.  The  first  general 
division  of  redintegration  is  into  Primary  and  Sec- 
ondary Laws  of  Association.  Each  of  these  has  its 
own  subdivisions.  The  Primary  Laws  I  divide  into 
those  of  Similarity  and  Contiguity.  The  Secondary 
Laws  I  divide  into  Frequency,  Intensity,  and  Inter- 
est.   I  take  up  each  class  separately. 

The  Primary  Laws  are  those  which  represent  the 
most  frequent  and  natural  influences  in  determining 
association  in  our  systematic  life  and  consciousness 
and  are  embodied,  as  said,  in  Similarity  and  Con- 
tiguity. The  Law  of  Similarity  is :  Resemblance  he- 
tween  mental  states  or  real  objects  tend  to  recall  or 
associate  the  experiences  previously  had  of  them. 
This  similarity,  implied  in  the  form  of  the  definition, 


90    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

takes  two  types,  subjectwe  and  objective.  For  Ob- 
jective Similarity  the  law  is:  Objects  that  resemble 
each  other  tend  to  be  associated  in  the  process  of 
experience.  If  this  resemblance  be  in  essential  qual- 
ities the  process  is  most  intimately  connected  with 
scientific  classification  and  the  more  philosophic 
views  of  the  world;  if  it  be  in  accidental  qualities, 
it  gives  rise  to  the  unsystematic  conceptions  of  un- 
reflective  life,  and  especially  in  its  humorous  and 
witty  aspects. 

For  Subjective  Similarity  the  law  is:  Mental 
states,  intellectual  or  emotional,  resembling  each 
other,  tend  to  be  associated,  and  with  them  the  ob- 
jects or  events  that  produce  them.  This  law  explains 
the  apparently  capricious  character  of  many  asso- 
ciations when  measured  by  the  scientific  criterion  and 
objectively  essential  qualities  upon  which  this  crite- 
rion depends.  It  especially  explains  the  association 
of  things  and  events  related  to  personal  interests  of 
the  individual. 

It  is  possible  to  make  the  law  of  subjective  sim- 
ilarity the  universal  one  in  associations  based  upon 
resemblances,  since  similar  objects  must  produce 
similar  mental  states  and  conditions.  But  as  the 
mind  depends  more  upon  the  known  resemblances  in 
the  objects  for  its  associations  than  upon  any  known 
likeness  in  its  sensations  or  conditions,  it  is  best  to 
distinguish  between  the  influence  of  objective  resem- 
blances on  the  mind  and  those  subjective  resemblances 
and  similarities  which  have  no  correlates  in  the  qual- 
ities of  the  object,  except  the  power  to  produce  this 
effect.     Let  me  illustrate  both  types  of  association. 


MEMORY  91 

The  wildcat  would  suggest  the  domestic  animal 
of  the  same  genus,  or  even  the  tiger.  The  buffalo 
would  suggest  the  ox,  the  beaver  the  rat,  the  mas- 
todon the  elephant ;  the  cHff s  a  mountain,  the  prairie 
an  ocean,  the  sun  the  moon,  the  Madeleine  the  Par- 
thenon, the  Columbia  Library  the  Pantheon,  Napo- 
leon Alexander  or  Csesar,  etc.  The  streets  and  houses 
of  one  city  may  suggest  those  of  another,  the  moun- 
tains of  one  country  those  of  another,  and  for  each 
individual  certain  buildings  will  suggest  certain  other 
buildings,  even  though  the  association  may  not  be 
a  common  one,  as  in  the  examples  which  I  have  pre- 
viously chosen.  The  points  of  similarity  are  not 
always  the  same  for  different  observers,  and  hence 
all  sorts  of  associations  may  be  excited  in  one  that 
are  not  excitable  in  another  by  the  same  objects. 
Thus  to  one,  Bismarck  might  suggest  Cavour,  to 
another  he  might  suggest  Metternich  or  Richelieu. 
To  one  Homer  would  suggest  Vergil,  and  to  another 
Milton.  To  one,  storm-clouds  might  suggest  moun- 
tains, and  to  another  angry  power.  And  so  with 
any  comparisons  that  the  reader  may  choose  to  select 
for  himself.  It  is  difficult  to  illustrate  this  peculiarity 
of  objective  similarity  in  terms  appreciable  by  all 
persons,  because  the  resemblances  remarked  are  not 
always  the  same  for  every  person.  Individual  dif- 
ferences of  interest  and  taste  lead  to  the  recognition 
of  different  resembling  characteristics  as  the  basis 
of  association.  But  in  many  of  our  associations, 
perhaps  by  far  the  majority,  an  objective  similarity 
of  some  kind  is  the  first  influence  in  association,  even 
though  other  laws  cooperate  to  bring  about  the  same 


92    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

associated  incident.  Much,  of  course,  depends  upon 
the  point  of  view  from  which  we  are  regarding  any 
given  experience.  One  similarity  may  affect  me  now 
in  a  way  that  it  will  not  to-morrow  or  did  not  yester- 
day. The  similarities  in  two  pictures  may  involve 
their  association  in  one  mood  of  mind  and  their  disso- 
ciation in  another,  or,  if  not  dependent  on  my  moods, 
I  may  have  one  interest  in  a  picture  to-day  and 
another  interest  in  it  the  next  day.  This,  of  course, 
is  neglecting  the  ordinary  similarities  and  attending 
to  other  characteristics,  but  it  suffices  to  prevent 
associations  that  might  otherwise  be  most  natural. 
But  in  all  cases  the  resemblances  instinctively  se- 
lected will  be  those  which  most  interest  our  tempera- 
ment. The  philosopher  and  scientist  will  select  one 
type  of  quality,  the  artist  another,  the  moralist  an- 
other, and  the  religious  mind  perhaps  still  another. 
But  along  with  objective  similarities  the  subjective 
will  operate  either  to  supplant  the  former  or  to 
strengthen  their  influence.  By  the  subjective  I  mean 
simply  those  states  of  mind  or  feeling  which  objects 
may  arouse  without  having  any  essential  resemblances 
to  the  objects  thus  associated  in  recall.  Thus  a  rose 
may  suggest  to  me  a  certain  piece  of  music ;  a  piece 
of  music  may  suggest  a  rose.  Another  type  of  music 
may  suggest  a  religious  service.  A  mountain  might 
suggest  Paradise  Lost;  a  poem  might  suggest  a 
painting;  an  intense  pleasure  at  a  drama  might 
suggest  a  scene  in  nature.  To  illustrate  by  more 
trivial  matters  and  absurd  associations,  the  taste  of  a 
strawberry  might  suggest  a  symphony,  a  flne-sound- 
ing  word  might  suggest  a  church,  the  metre  of  a 


MEMORY  93 

poem  a  dance,  the  pleasure  of  wine,  as  with  the  old 
Greek,  a  long  throat  to  prolong  the  taste,  the  beauty 
of  a  river  the  meaning  of  hfe,  etc.  I  remember  one 
instance  in  which  the  physical  pleasure  of  an  after- 
noon breeze  suggested  the  Falls  of  the  Rhine  to 
me,  the  emotion  being  the  same  in  both  instances. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  caprice  in  these  subjective 
influences  in  similarity  of  feeling  excited.  They 
give  rise  to  the  strange  associations  in  many  instances 
which  strike  us  as  absurd  or  amusing.  Quite  as 
often  they  represent  the  subjective  usefulness  of  ob- 
jects to  our  lives,  and  in  some  instances  mark  the 
personal  interest  and  its  relation  to  objects.  But 
it  is  objective  similarity  that  indicates  most  dis- 
tinctly, and  perhaps  most  healthily,  our  adjustment 
to  environment.  We  shall  see  later  that  any  weak- 
ness of  our  emotional  reactions  may  lead  to  the  wrong 
associations,  and  thus  to  the  maladjustment  of  our 
actions  in  the  physical  world.  But  even  in  our 
healthiest  conditions  their  influence  on  the  images 
recalled  is  a  most  striking  fact,  and  it  only  happens 
that  usually  the  objective  influences  either  absorb  the 
prominent  interest  of  the  mind  or  subordinate  the 
subjective  to  their  rule,  making  the  unimportant 
mental  interests  only  indirect  objects  of  conscious- 
ness and  action. 

The  Law  of  Contiguity  is:  Phenomena  that  are 
in  some  way  contiguous  to  each  other,  either  in  space 
or  time,  tend  to  be  recalled  together.  This  influence 
does  not  involve  any  similarity  of  nature  or  causal 
agency  whatever  to  stimulate  recall.  The  redinte- 
gration is   simply  that  of  space  and  time  wholes. 


94    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

A  landscape,  a  house,  a  river,  a  city,  a  street  have 
a  tendency  to  recall  the  objects  previously  remarked 
in  their  proximity.  Any  reproduced  memory  almost 
will  illustrate  this  phenomena,  and  it  is  too  familiar 
a  law  to  require  elaborate  illustration.  Contiguity 
in  time  is  not  so  easily  illustrated.  But  the  events 
of  the  present  hour  recall  those  of  the  last  more 
easily  than  those  of  the  day  before,  with  exceptions 
due  to  the  predominance  of  other  primary  and  sec- 
ondary laws.  There  requires  no  similarity,  subjec- 
tive or  objective,  in  the  events  that  make  temporal 
contiguity  influential  in  reproduction.  The  only 
condition  is  that  they  shall  constitute  the  same  part 
of  a  present  total  in  consciousness  that  any  part 
of  a  space  total  represents  in  it.  Hence  the  events 
in  England  to-day  may  influence  reproduction  in  my 
mind  more  easily  than  the  events  of  my  childhood. 
This  contiguity,  however,  is  most  especially  notice- 
able in  its  subjective  form.  This  means  that,  what- 
ever the  real  time  in  history  of  any  set  of  events, 
their  association  in  consciousness  at  any  time  tends 
to  have  them  associated  again  when  any  part  of 
them  is  recalled,  as  the  law  of  redintegration  re- 
quires. Events,  too,  that  have  no  objective  associa- 
tion whatever,  if  temporarily  associated  in  conscious- 
ness, tend  to  be  recalled  together.  I  may  be  reading 
Roman  history  and  be  interrupted  by  a  beggar,  only 
to  have  Roman  history  suggested  by  the  next  sight 
of  a  beggar,  or  I  may  be  eating  oranges  at  a  con- 
cert, only  to  have  a  concert  suggested  by  eating 
oranges  again.  The  reader  may  introspect  his  own 
experience  for  better  illustrations.     But  contiguity 


MEMORY  95 

in  time  and  space  are  perhaps  as  powerful  suggest- 
ives  as  similarity.  They  account  for  those  asso- 
ciations which  represent  that  part  of  reminiscent 
wholes  which  is  not  suggested  by  similarity  alone  or 
by  secondary  laws. 

When  it  comes  to  defining  and  explaining  the  sec- 
ondary laws,  we  may  perhaps  allow  them  to  explain 
themselves.  They  are  simply  the  fact  that  greater 
frequency  in  the  occurrence  of  the  same  experience, 
whether  important  or  trivial,  will  give  it  a  tendency 
to  reproduction  that  it  would  not  otherwise  have; 
that  greater  intensity  of  an  experience,  trivial  or  not, 
tends  to  keep  it  in  consciousness;  and  greater  in- 
terest, whatever  the  object  or  event,  has  a  like  ten- 
dency. Frequency  is  one  of  the  features  of  habit, 
whether  it  is  connected  with  trivial  or  important  mat- 
ters. It  is  well  illustrated  in  the  automatic  habits 
we  adopt,  for  instance,  biting  our  finger-nails,  whis- 
tling when  we  work,  twirling  our  fingers  or  moving 
the  head  in  embarrassment.  In  these  cases  frequency 
supplements  contiguity  in  time.  Intensity  means 
that  the  emphasis  or  intense  painfulness  or  agree- 
ableness  of  a  sensation,  emotion,  or  other  mental 
state  so  aff^ects  its  relation  to  others  as  to  increase 
its  liability  to  reproduction,  as  its  associates  are  sub- 
merged and  left  out  of  notice  by  the  very  intensity 
or  relative  interest  of  the  one  fact.  Interest,  of 
course,  is  a  most  important  influence  in  reproduction, 
as  it  represents  that  selectiveness  which  gives  some 
sort  of  intensity  for  a  given  fact  while  suppressing 
the  relative  strength  of  others.  It  is  probable  that 
interest  is  the  fundamental  agency  in  all  reproduc- 


96    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

tion  connected  with  the  main  objects  of  systematic 
thought  and  action.  It  means  the  concentration  of 
attention  and  will  upon  one  object  or  general  aim, 
with  which  must  be  associated  all  the  proper  events 
of  experience.  This  strain  and  stress  of  conscious- 
ness acts  as  a  gravitating  force  upon  all  the  inci- 
dents in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  and  enables 
association  to  select  the  particular  law  which  it  will 
predominantly  follow.  It  is  the  secret  of  a  good 
memory,  which  means  that  facts  can  be  recalled  with 
reference  to  a  rationally  chosen  end  instead  of  the 
capricious  influence  of  various  laws  not  naturally 
acting  in  cooperation  toward  the  one  end.  Interest 
may  have  to  rely  upon  similarity  and  contiguity, 
and  even  secondary  laws  of  reproduction  for  its  con- 
tent, but  it  serves  as  the  selective  principle  which 
organizes  the  relevant  facts  of  experience  while  it 
disregards  those  which  might  otherwise  intrude  them- 
selves into  a  place  where  they  are  irrelevant  and 
unnecessary.  Hence  it  is  the  power  which  assigns 
limitations  to  the  operation  of  the  other  laws  and 
makes  them  subserve  a  rational  end. 

It  is  probably  very  seldom  that  any  one  of  these 
laws  acts  alone.  It  requires  little  observation  of 
one's  own  experience  to  see  that  many  reproductions 
are  related  to  two  or  more  of  these  laws  at  the  same 
time;  that  any  one  of  them  might  be  sufficient  to  ex- 
plain many  or  the  most  of  our  recalled  experiences. 
When  they  cooperate  in  this  result  the  riecall  is  all 
the  more  likely,  and,  in  fact,  this  is  the  secret  of  ready 
reproduction  in  all  cases.  If  only  one  character- 
istic of  the  past  is  recalled,  it  is  more  difficult  to 


MEMORY  97 

recall  all  of  it,  to  make  the  redintegration  perfect, 
than  it  is  when  two  or  more  of  the  incidents  are  repro- 
duced. Any  abstraction  of  a  single  incident  will  tend 
to  produce  some  illusion  of  memory,  and  hence  our 
security  from  error  depends  in  some  measure,  more  or 
less,  upon  the  amount  of  redintegration  occurring  at 
the  first  instant  of  recall,  and  the  more  laws  cooper- 
ating to  enrich  that  recall,  the  better  command  we 
have  over  our  past.  Thus,  suppose  that  I  recall  a 
conversation  with  Mr.  A. ;  unless  I  also  recall  at 
the  same  time  the  special  place  at  which  it  occurred 
I  may  find  on  further  investigation  that  it  was  not 
A.  at  all  with  whom  I  had  the  conversation,  but  B. 
This  is  a  very  frequent  mistake  of  people,  and  it  leads 
to  all  sorts  of  errors  of  statement  and  action.  We 
can  hardly  read  an  interview  in  the  newspaper  on 
account  of  the  known  mistakes  of  this  kind  creeping 
into  the  story.  But  if  we  can  recall  with  it  a  variety 
of  concomitant  or  associated  circumstances,  we  can 
better  assure  ourselves  of  the  correctness  of  memory. 
The  test  of  accuracy  in  such  matters  is  the  extent  of 
the  identity  in  the  redintegration,  and  to  obtain  this 
in  all  its  complexity  a  number  of  laws  must  combine 
to  effect  the  reproduction. 

This  combination  of  laws  to  achieve  the  same  re- 
sult often  gives  rise  in  the  psychologist  to  the  recog- 
nition of  other  laws  of  reproduction,  such  as  Con- 
vergent and  Divergent  Association,  and  Association 
by  Contrast.  But  in  fact  these  are  but  combinations 
of  the  simple  or  primary  and  secondary  laws.  I  do 
not  require  here  to  enter  into  any  analysis  of  them. 
I  shall  only  point  out  that  association  by  contrast  is 


98    PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   BORDERLAND 

a  combination  of  contiguity  in  time  and  frequency, 
with  perhaps  an  element  of  subjective  similarity. 
If  this  be  true,  we  do  not  require  to  treat  it  as  a 
separate  law,  though  we  might  be  tempted  to  do  it 
from  the  relation  of  contrast  to  similarity.  But  this 
relation  is  itself  one  that  suggests  a  difference  which 
analysis  does  not  support.  Contrasted  experiences 
would  not  be  recalled  except  for  their  frequent  asso- 
ciation by  contiguity  in  time  and  space.  The  content 
marks  such  a  difference  that  we  think  a  new  law  of 
association  is  necessary  to  explain  their  reproduction 
together,  and  the  temptation  is  great  in  proportion 
to  our  recognition  of  similarity  as  fundamental. 
But  when  we  once  admit  that  similarity  is  no  more 
fundamental  than  contiguity,  we  shall  have  no  dif- 
ficulty in  admitting  that  contrast  is  a  complex  law. 
It  may  be  raised  in  abnormal  cases  into  an  apparent 
simple  law  by  the  mere  habit  of  noticing  this  con- 
trast between  certain  objects,  antithesis  in  things, 
and  then  setting  it  up  as  a  mental  interest  by  which 
to  be  controlled.  In  such  cases  the  law  is  really  one 
of  similarity  in  a  general  and  abstract  quality  with  a 
decided  difference  in  content  of  the  more  sensory  kind. 
The  importance  of  reproduction  or  mnemonic  asso- 
ciation lies  in  its  relation  to  Retention  and  Recog- 
nition. The  value  of  retention  depends  wholly  upon 
the  recall  of  remembered  incidents  instead  of  leaving 
them  latent  in  the  mind  or  brain.  Without  repro- 
duction the  past  would  produce  no  recognizable  or 
conscious  influence  on  the  present  moment  of  con- 
sciousness. We  should  have  nothing  but  a  deposit 
of  experience  forever  irrecoverable  to  consciousness 


MEMORY  99 

and  a  present  moment  which  is  only  the  reaction  of 
the  mind  on  present  stimulus.  The  past  would  not 
count  in  the  present.  It  could  not  be  recognized, 
and  if  it  produced  any  effect  at  all  on  the  contents 
of  the  present  it  would  only  be  that  influence  which 
would  represent  the  actual  but  not  recognized  pres- 
ence of  data,  the  momentum  of  past  mental  states, 
which  would  not  be  distinguished  from  the  reaction 
of  the  mind  on  the  existing  stimulus.  This  undoubt- 
edly occurs  in  all  of  us  to  some  extent,  and  possibly 
to  a  larger  extent  than  we  are  at  all  aware  of.  But 
it  serves  no  special  purpose  in  our  conscious  life  un- 
less it  is  recognizable  as  the  past.  It  is  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  present  and  the  past  that  enables 
us  to  determine  the  order  of  nature  which  is  to  com- 
mand our  respect.  In  fact,  the  past  would  have  no 
meaning  for  us  whatever,  and  would  not  even  be  dis- 
coverable in  its  unconscious  influence  but  for  its  re- 
production in  the  present,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
and  hence  the  measure  of  our  knowledge  of  things 
and  of  our  ethical  adjustment  to  them  will  be  the 
extent  of  our  conscious  recognition  of  a  reproduced 
past.  Unconscious  reproduction,  that  is,  the  uncon- 
scious influence  of  the  past  on  the  present,  or  per- 
haps better  still,  the  unrecognizable  influence  of  the 
past  on  the  present,  would  be  well  enough  in  a  world 
that  is  changeless,  but  in  a  world  where  change  is 
the  law  of  many  things,  it  is  important  to  have  a 
measure  of  both  the  permanent  and  the  transient  in 
existence,  as  our  actions  will  alter  to  suit  this  evo- 
lutionary process. 

I  have  here  been  anticipating,  in  a  measure,  the 


100    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ftinction  of  recognition.  But  I  did  so  to  indicate 
what  place  reproduction  of  the  past  for  present  con- 
sciousness has  in  the  ethical  economy  of  life.  Re- 
production is,  in  fact,  a  wholly  unconscious  act,  and 
we  are  not  aware  of  it  as  a  fact  until  we  recognize 
the  present  content  of  consciousness  as  having  at 
least  some  part  of  the  past  in  it.  The  reproduction 
would  otherwise  be,  if  it  occurred  at  all,  only  the 
latent  influence  of  the  present,  which  I  have  just 
said  actually  occurs  at  times.  The  function  of  pri- 
mary importance  after  reproduction  is  recognition. 

If  retention  were  a  much  more  limited  capacity 
of  the  mind,  less  stress  or  importance  could  be  placed 
on  the  working  of  reproduction,  as,  no  matter  how 
perfect  its  laws  and  action,  the  effect  on  present  con- 
sciousness would  be  limited  by  the  extent  of  reten- 
tion. But  when  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  reten- 
tion is  absolute,  that  the  mind  or  brain  retains  abso- 
lutely every  impression  it  ever  had,  whether  sublim- 
inal or  supraliminal,  unconscious  or  conscious,  the 
whole  responsibility  for  the  utility  of  the  past  to 
the  present  will  rest  on  the  extent  of  its  reproduc- 
tibility  and  recognizability.  If  reproduction  or  asso- 
ciation is  good  or  can  be  educated  up  to  the  needs 
of  the  mind's  life,  the  past  will  have  some  place  in 
the  present  commensurate  with  the  soul's  capacity 
for  retention.  Otherwise  the  mental  development  will 
be  proportionally  defective.  But  in  any  case  repro- 
duction is  the  intermediate  influence  acting  between 
retention  and  recognition,  and  its  utility  will  be  pro- 
portioned to  that  normal  action  which  indicates  the 
proper  adjustment  of  the  past  to  the  present. 


MEMORY  101 

3.  Imagination 

I  have  called  the  Imagination  by  the  name  of  Rep- 
resentation in  order  to  indicate  thereby,  perhaps  in 
an  etymological  sense,  the  relation  of  its  functions 
to  the  original  presentations  of  sense  or  intellection. 
With  many  the  term  means  a  constructive  faculty 
of  the  mind,  and  hence  its  power  to  create  certain 
ideas  or  ideals.  But  this  import  of  the  term  loses 
sight  of  its  real  relation  to  past  experience,  though 
it  does  indicate  one  aspect  of  the  mind  in  what  is 
called  the  productive  imagination.  Representation 
distinctly  expresses  its  relation  to  the  past  and  in- 
volves much  the  same  function  as  the  ordinary  con- 
ception of  the  term  imagination.  I  define  Repre- 
sentation, therefore,  as  the  act  of  re-imaging  the  past 
experience  or  reconstructing  it  in  new  forms.  This 
conception  of  it  describes  two  forms  of  it,  the  merely 
reproductive  imagination  and  the  productive  or  cre- 
ative imagination.  The  reproductive  imagination 
simply  pictures  or  repictures  the  past  as  it  occurred 
in  sensation,  and  is  the  consequence  of  recall.  The 
productive  imagination  modifies  past  experience,  tak- 
ing its  forms,  and  creates  structures  of  thought  out 
of  the  materials  of  the  past. 

But  in  both  forms  the  principal  interest  is  in  the 
nature  of  its  activity  and  in  its  relation  to  the  sen- 
sory experiences  which  originated  its  data.  The 
question  for  the  psychologist  is  primarily  the  man- 
ner of  its  action  and  not  its  material  content.  The 
literary  man  may  be  interested  in  its  education  and 
use  for  practical  life,   but   in  this  discussion  of  it 


102    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

we  shall  discard  all  questions  of  this  kind,  and  con- 
cern ourselves  with  the  relation  of  imagination  to 
the  problems  of  normal  and  abnormal  psychology, 
and  especially  the  latter,  where  we  have  to  consider 
the  relation  of  imagination  to  illusions  and  hallu- 
cinations. We  shall  find  in  discussing  these  phe- 
nomena that  they  more  or  less  appear  to  represent 
real  objects,  and  the  question  is  whether  the  imag- 
ination plays  any  part  in  their  production. 

Whenever  a  past  experience  is  recalled  clearly 
we  have  what  is  termed  a  "  memory  picture  "  of  it. 
This  means  that  our  minds  represent  to  themselves 
the  past  in  simulacra  or  like  forms  to  those  which 
were  originally  experienced.  In  vision  we  have  a 
distinct  picture  before  the  mind's  eye  of  what  we 
have  seen.  In  touch,  hearing,  taste,  and  smell,  in 
varying  degrees  of  clearness,  we  imagine  or  picture 
the  past.  The  question  is  whether  these  pictures  or 
images,  or  remembered  forms,  involve  any  of  the 
sensory  functions  in  their  production.  In  most  of 
us,  I  conceive,  the  memory  picture  can  be  easily  dis- 
tinguished from  the  real  sensations  from  which  they 
come.  There  is  no  judgment  or  illusion  of  reality 
in  them.  If  I  remember  or  imagine  the  mountain  or 
valley  that  I  have  seen,  I  do  not  see  it  before  me, 
in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term  "  see,"  but  I  think 
of  it  in  its  place,  though  I  imagine  or  picture  in  the 
mind  the  form  and  appearance  of  it  as  it  was  seen 
in  reality;  but  I  do  not  in  any  way  mistake  what 
I  thus  picture  for  an  object  now  presented  to  me, 
as  I  should  do  in  an  illusion  or  hallucination.  But 
in  spite  of  this  we  often  talk  of  a  "  vivid  imagina- 


MEMORY  103 

tlon  "  as  if  things  might  thus  be  pictured  as  real. 
It  will  require  very  careful  investigation  in  such  cases 
to  assure  ourselves  that  a  "  vivid  imagination  "  rep- 
resents its  objects  as  apparent  realities.  I  have  not 
yet  found  it  evident  in  any  cases  of  the  perfectly 
normal  type,  and  we  may  question  whether  the  abnor- 
mal types,  really  or  apparently  so  representing  them, 
are  instances  of  imagination.  It  would  require  some 
care  to  determine  this,  and  we  cannot  assume  it  from 
the  language  employed  to  describe  the  experience, 
unless  evidence  can  be  produced  that  it  actually 
means  what  it  seems  to  mean.  I  myself  have  cer- 
tainly never  found  any  real  resemblance  between  a 
sensation  and  a  product  of  the  imagination  in  my 
normal  state,  and  any  uniformity  of  difference  be- 
tween the  normal  and  the  abnormal  state  in  this  re- 
spect would  throw  doubts  upon  the  extension  of 
imagination  to  explain  illusion  and  hallucination, 
and  upon  the  simulation  of  reality  by  imagination 
in  the  normal  state.  Even  the  consciousness  of  real- 
ity would  not  prove  it  to  us  unless  we  ourselves  had 
that  consciousness  and  could  compare  it  with  reality. 
The  testimony  of  others  would  not  decide  it  unless 
they  were  familiar  with  psychological  criteria,  and 
I  certainly  do  not  find  in  my  experience  the  slightest 
reason  or  evidence  to  believe  that  imagination  can 
produce  sensory  states  in  imitation  of  reality,  though 
we  recognize  the  simulacrum  of  it  in  memory  pic- 
tures. A  fit  of  absent-mindedness  or  abstraction, 
involving  such  concentration  of  thought  as  to  ob- 
scure the  consciousness  of  other  and  indirect  objects 
in  the  field,  may  make  us  act  as  if  we  were  contem- 


104.    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

plating  reality  in  our  memory  picture,  and  we  may 
think  that  it  is  real,  while  we  do  not  have  the  sen^ 
sation  of  apparent  reality.  Hence  it  will  be  difficult 
to  prove  that  imagination  actually  reproduces  sen- 
sory reactions  so  like  the  real  as  to  be  taken  for  them. 
If  we  can  appeal  to  hypnotic  phenomena  and 
dreams  for  support,  we  may  find  there  facts  tending 
to  show  this  very  capacity  of  imagination,  if  we 
can  rightly  call  the  result  of  suggestion  in  one  case 
and  dreaming  in  the  other  as  productions  of  the 
imagination.  But  this  is  just  the  question,  though 
the  resemblance  to  imagination  in  some  respects  at 
least  is  undoubted.  It  is  certain  that  a  semblance 
of  reality  is  found  in  hypnotic  suggestions  and  the 
pictures  they  create  in  the  mind.  I  saw  one  instance 
in  which  the  subject  remembered,  after  hypnosis  was 
removed,  the  images  which  had  been  suggested  in 
the  hypnotic  state,  and  refused,  because  of  their 
frightful  character,  to  allow  rehypnosis.  He  de- 
scribed the  things  he  had  seen,  wild  animals  and  the 
like.  He  indicated  that  they  had  seemed  real  to  him, 
and  the  alarm  which  he  had  felt  during  the  hypnosis 
was  carried  onward  into  the  waking  state,  though 
perfectly  normal  in  this.  I  remember  also  two 
dreams  of  my  own  in  which  I  awakened  while  the 
dream  was  going  on,  and  its  images  remained  some 
moments  during  my  waking  state  so  that  I  could  in- 
trospect them.  They  seemed  exactly  like  real  ob- 
jects, and  one  of  them  so  real  that  I  could  not  think 
where  I  was  in  fact,  though  knowing  that  it  was  a 
dream  apparition.  Dr.  Boris  Sidis  calls  attention 
to  an  experiment  of  his  own  in  which  he  suggested 


MEMORY  105 

to  a  patient  under  hypnosis  that  he  could  see  his 
hand,  which  was  placed  behind  a  screen,  and  the 
man  compared  what  he  saw  with  the  other  hand,  which 
was  not  behind  the  screen.  He  remarked  that  one 
hand  seemed  larger  than  the  other,  and  said  he  could 
not  otherwise  distinguish  between  them  when  he  was 
asked  to  do  so.  I  think  that  the  general  conviction 
about  our  dreams  is  that  the  images  are  like  reality 
and  more  distinct  and  "  real "  than  memory  pictures 
of  the  normal  state.  It  may  be  that  the  cutting  off 
of  our  ordinary  introspective  action  in  our  dreams 
and  of  their  comparison  with  present  experiences 
with  their  associates  affects  the  sense  of  reality,  but 
there  is  such  a  uniformity  of  experience  in  this  mat- 
ter, where  we  are  not  nearly  enough  awake  to  make 
the  comparison  mentioned,  as  to  favor  the  idea  that 
the  dream  state  imitates  sensory  states  very  perfectly. 
If,  then,  we  can  use  dreams  and  hypnotic  states  as 
evidence  of  tendencies  in  the  normal  imagination,  we 
may  well  suppose  that  it  represents  at  least  incipient 
sensory  states,  and  it  may  be  that  instances  occur 
in  which  this  incipiency  borders  on  the  production 
of  a  real  sensation  subjectively  considered. 

The  fact  which  suggests  the  imitation  of  reality  in 
the  functions  of  imagination  is  the  admitted  charac- 
ter of  the  memory  picture,  and  in  our  theory  of 
brain  centres  and  activities  it  would  be  very  natural 
to  expect  that  the  recurrence  of  the  past  in  memory 
would  in  a  measure  excite  the  same  functions.  But 
in  our  normal  life  it  would  be  important  that  these 
resurrections  should  not  be  mistaken  for  reality,  and 
this    circumstance    strengthens    the    suspicion    that, 


106    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

normally,  imagination  does  not  reproduce  the  sen- 
sory action  in  any  distinct  simulation  of  reality. 
Though  this  be  the  case,  however,  it  might  in  various 
situations  act  abnormally,  and  so  tend  to  arouse  sen- 
sory action.  I  have  in  mind  to  illustrate  this  a  fre- 
quent experience  of  my  own.  If  I  think  of  some 
possible  danger  to  myself,  and  allow  my  mind  a  sort 
of  absent-minded  tendency  and  without  the  purpose 
of  effecting  the  result  which  does  happen,  I  can  often 
feel  a  distinct  tactual  pain,  which  represents  the 
actual  pain  I  would  experience  if  the  accident  imag- 
ined actually  occurred.  I  remember,  too,  once  seeing 
a  boy  knocked  down  with  a  brick,  and  the  incident 
so  angered  me  that  for  many  years  afterward,  when 
I  would  think  of  the  incident  intently  and  in  a  fit 
of  abstraction  I  could  almost  feel  the  sensation  in 
my  temples  of  being  struck.  The  thought  would 
instigate  muscular  contortions  which  I  would  discover 
after  they  occurred.  Whether  similar  phenomena  take 
place  in  intense  imaginative  experience,  suggestive 
or  otherwise,  I  do  not  know,  but  they  may,  and,  if 
they  do,  we  can  understand  how  illusion  and  hallu- 
cination may  occur  in  abnormal  conditions.  But  any 
assumption  of  such  a  tendency  involves  the  idea  that 
mere  thoughts  or  remembered  states  of  mind  can  ex- 
cite sensory  centres  in  the  same  way  as  external  stim- 
uli, and  while  this  seems  to  be  the  case  in  abnormal 
conditions,  it  is  not  so  certain  that  it  characterizes  the 
normal.  But  there  may  be  in  the  Vjarious  types  of 
imagination,  or  degrees  of  it  in  different  individuals, 
the  tendency  to  exhibit  phenomena  that  suggest  the 
possible  simulation  of  sensations  by  the  imagination. 


MEMORY  107 

But  it  is  difficult  to  prove,  and  when  it  is  proved 
we  may  find  the  instances  so  infrequent  that  we  may 
classify  them  with  the  abnormal.  It  is  probable  that 
a  statistical  inquiry  would  tend  to  discount  the  as- 
sumption of  real  simulation. 

4.  Recognition 

All  the  previous  phenomena  of  memory,  Reten- 
tion, Reproduction,  and  Imagination,  are  uncon- 
scious acts.  They  perform  their  work  before  recog- 
nition can  take  place,  and  in  fact  their  very  exist- 
ence beyond  the  introspection  of  the  mind  is  inferred 
from  the  results  as  they  appear  in  recognition.  Rec- 
ognition is  simply  the  conscious  side  of  memory,  the 
recognition  of  what  is  cognition  in  the  original  case, 
and  it  marks  the  sense  of  past  time  in  the  experience 
as  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  phenom- 
enon. That  is  to  say,  recognition  is  the  conscious- 
ness that  the  recalled  incident  belongs  to  the  past 
and  so  sets  the  phenomenon  off  from  a  present  sen- 
sation. How  it  occurs  and  what  its  conditions  are 
we  do  not  know.  It  is  an  unique  act  of  mind,  quite 
as  unanalyzable  as  any  other  consciousness,  and  is  the 
crowning  act  of  memory.  The  act  is  of  the  nature 
of  perception,  and  so  is  subject  to  similar  illusions 
or  errors.  This  is  its  main  interest  in  the  problem 
before  us.  How  it  is  possible,  and  what  the  activities 
of  the  brain  may  be  that  determine  it,  I  do  not  care 
or  know.  But  we  do  know  that  it  is  the  one  act 
which  makes  possible  the  use  of  the  past  when  re- 
called. But  for  this  recognition,  reproduction  of  the 
past  would  have  no  influence  on  conscious  life.     No 


108    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

doubt  it  is  just  the  distinction  between  the  product 
of  the  imagination  and  the  present  sensation  that 
helps  to  distinguish  between  past  and  present,  though 
this  distinction  is  probably  aided  by  other  factors 
in  the  phenomena,  such  as  imperfect  redintegration. 
But  it  is  the  liability  to  illusion  in  recognition,  due 
probably  in  most  cases  to  this  imperfect  redintegra- 
tion, that  makes  it  important  for  the  study  of  ab- 
normal cases.  This  will  appear  in  later  discussions. 
In  the  meantime  we  have  only  to  observe  that  the 
fundamental  feature  of  the  act  is  its  perception  of 
the  identity  of  a  past  event,  its  relative  localization 
in  the  redintegrated  whole  or  in  the  stream  of  experi- 
ence. The  judgment  of  recognition  is  this  identifi- 
cation and  localization,  and  it  will  be  accurate  or 
illusory  in  proportion  to  the  completeness  of  redinte- 
gration. Recognition  may  not  be  mistaken  in  what 
it  does  perceive  as  past,  but  it  may  mistake  either 
the  locus  of  that  past  or  the  totality  of  it.  The 
part  which  it  recognizes  may  be  a  real  part  of  the 
past  experience  which  it  mistakes,  but  the  other  asso- 
ciated facts  may  not  be  any  part  of  it,  and  whether 
illusions  of  this  sort  occur  or  not  will  depend  upon 
the  extent  of  redintegration.  This  will  be  apparent 
in  the  study  of  illusions  of  memory.  For  the  pres- 
ent I  merely  remark  the  condition  of  its  accuracy 
in  the  judgment  of  the  past. 

Let  me  summarize.  In  order  to  reach  the  act  of 
recognition  the  mind  has  to  have  the  preceding  steps 
of  retention,  reproduction,  and  representation  or 
imagination.  Recognition  is  the  one  function  by 
which  we  appropriate  consciously  the  past  experience. 


MEMORY  109 

AH  the  others  are  unconscious  and  uneducible  di- 
rectly. Whatever  influence  the  mind  can  have  over 
their  action  must  be  the  result  of  conscious  interest 
and  habit.  Retention  is  probably  perfect,  and  hence 
requires  no  aid  in  the  exercise  of  its  functions.  It 
is  like  a  mechanical  register,  and  does  its  work  with- 
out the  need  of  education.  But  owing  to  the  need 
of  selection  from  the  past  in  what  is  recalled  there 
must  be  limitation  to  the  function  of  reproduction. 
Some  adjustment  of  its  functions  to  the  special  wants 
of  the  mind  at  the  moment  is  imperative,  and  this 
imposes  a  law  of  economy  on  association.  With  the 
alteration  of  human  interests  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment, and  in  the  various  emergencies  of  life,  there 
must  go  a  corresponding  adjustability  of  association, 
and  this  involves  exposure  to  all  sorts  of  incoordina- 
tion in  recall,  especially  when  any  change  of  asso- 
ciation is  required  against  the  law  of  frequency  or 
habit.  The  errors  in  recognition  will  depend  for 
prevention  on  the  right  adjustment  of  association 
to  the  needs  of  the  present  consciousness,  and  hence 
the  value  of  educating  reproduction.  All  the  im- 
portance of  conscious  regulation  of  life  depends  on 
the  extent  to  which  the  recognition  of  the  past  is 
accurate  and  relevant,  and  that  accuracy  and  rele- 
vancy will  depend  upon  the  quality  and  quantity  of 
redintegration.  Interest  and  attention  are  more  or 
less  necessary  to  the  quality  of  what  is  recalled,  and 
the  development  of  complexity  in  association  is  neces- 
sary to  its  quantity.  The  cooperation  of  these  in- 
fluences produces  the  maximum  of  conscious  appro- 
priation of  experience  and  the  healthy  action  of  the 


110    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

mind  and  will.  At  the  basis  of  these  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  normal  life  is  interest  and  attention. 
Any  relaxation  of  these,  leaves  the  mind  at  the  mercy 
of  capricious  associations  and  the  irregularities  of 
the  abnormal  subject. 


CHAPTER   V 

DISSOCIATION    AND    OBLIVISCENCE 

Dissociation  and  obliviscence  are  the  complement 
of  memory.  They  represent  the  retirement  of  inci- 
dents in  past  experience  from  the  command  of  asso- 
ciation and  reproduction.  Dissociation  is  a  function 
quite  as  important  to  the  normal  mind  as  association, 
though  it  is  also  the  function  that  so  clearly  marks 
the  abnormal  mind  in  its  action.  But  it  is  a  law  of 
consciousness  as  distinct  and  as  deeply  ingrained  in 
its  fibre  as  its  complement,  redintegration.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  a  function  of  the  normal  and  abnor- 
mal life  alike,  and  is  distinguished  in  them  by  the 
manner  of  its  operation.  We  shall  examine  this  fea- 
ture of  it  later.  For  the  present  it  suffices  to  remark 
its  complementary  nature  with  association  and  its 
occurrence  in  both  forms  of  the  life  of  consciousness. 
Redintegration  builds  together  the  phenomena  of 
experience,  and  but  for  certain  limitations  would 
cement  all  of  them  into  the  same  compact  whole.  Dis- 
sociation tends  to  separate  one  set  of  experiences 
from  others  and  to  moderate  the  tendencies  of  redin- 
tegration. It  drops  those  elements  of  experience 
which  are  irrelevant  to  either  the  present  content  of 
consciousness  or  the  general  stream  as  determined  by 
persistency  of  aim.     In  this  way  it  serves  as  an  eco- 

111 


112    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

nomic  principle  in  mental  life.  Certain  influences 
may  give  it  such  power  as  to  almost  wholly  disin- 
tegrate any  given  facts  from  the  place  they  should 
have  in  consciousness.  Let  us  examine  both  processes, 
redintegration  briefly,  in  order  to  see  more  clearly 
how  dissociation  acts  upon  its  tendencies. 

I  have  said  that  redintegration  tends  to  restore 
the  whole  of  any  given  past  experience  when  a  part 
of  it  is  restored.  The  amount  recalled  will  depend 
much  upon  the  mental  development  of  the  individual, 
and  upon  the  particular  mental  state  in  which  he  is 
at  the  time.  Suppose  I  meet  a  friend  after  a  long 
absence,  I  naturally  think  of  the  last  time  I  saw  him, 
his  surroundings,  his  occupation,  his  books  or  his 
pleasures,  the  kindness  he  did  me,  and  the  thousand 
little  things  making  our  common  life  at  the  time  we 
were  previously  together.  But  all  this  will  depend 
somewhat  upon  my  state  of  mind.  If  I  am  busily 
occupied  I  may  only  exchange  greetings  and  a  word 
or  two  about  the  past.  The  present  state  of  con- 
sciousness, its  stress  and  strain,  its  interests  and  at- 
tention, will  check  the  recall  of  many  things  that 
require  diversion  from  the  main  pursuit  of  the  mind 
at  the  time,  and  at  least  a  momentary  forgetfulness 
of  this,  and  redintegration  does  not  do  the  work 
it  would  do  if  consciousness  had  relaxed  its  atten- 
tion to  the  main  idea.  There  are  two  types  of  the 
present  consciousness.  The  first  is  its  day-dreaming 
condition,  when  it  has  relaxed  the  strain  of  work 
and  allows  the  stream  of  thought  and  sensation  to 
flow  on  unhindered  by  any  voluntary  restraints,  and 
gives  it  over  to  the  untrammelled  laws  of  association 


DISSOCIATION  113 

in  all  their  capricious  action.  The  amount  of  inte- 
gration here  will  depend  upon  the  movement  of  men- 
tal interest.  If  this  is  slow  more  will  be  recalled; 
if  it  is  rapid  less  will  be  recalled.  Even  here  the 
effect  of  habit  and  interest  on  the  subconscious  states 
will  have  their  influence  on  what  is  recalled,  and  tend 
to  exclude  what  had  been  buried  by  irrelevance  to 
conscious  interest  and  attention.  The  second  type 
of  present  consciousness  is  that  which  always  has 
the  content  and  coloring  of  the  main  interest  of  the 
individual's  life.  It  is  not  a  mere  "  moment  con- 
sciousness," but  is  in  addition  the  state  constituted 
by  what  the  will  has  made  a  constant  object  of  pur- 
suit, and  so  determined  the  law  of  association  that 
will  act  and  the  content  of  experience  on  which  that 
law  will  act.  This  state  is  a  consistent  stream  char- 
acterized by  one  idea,  about  which  gravitates  the 
relevant  of  the  past,  while  the  former  type  has  no 
single  principle  of  gravitation,  and  is  the  conscious- 
ness that  most  easily  represents  the  restful  pleasures 
of  life. 

Both  types  use  the  same  laws  of  association,  but 
they  use  them  in  a  different  manner  and  with  a  dif- 
ferent content.  The  one  is  more  selective  than  the 
other,  and  tends  to  neglect  all  factors  of  experience 
that  have  no  special  relation  to  the  main  idea.  The 
other  has  no  reference  to  a  main  idea,  but  to  what- 
ever may  casually  recur  to  consciousness. 

It  is  in  this  selective  tendency,  imposed  on  the  mind 
by  interest  and  attention,  that  the  process  of  disso- 
ciation begins.  We  choose  a  certain  end  to  realize, 
say  the  study  of  art,  the  pursuit  of  science,  success 


114    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

in  business,  the  career  of  a  statesman,  or  other  ambi- 
tious aim,  and  the  choice  will  sharpen  association  as 
much  as  it  does  present  perception  and  observation. 
They  determine  the  one  attraction  for  the  gravitation 
of  ideas,  and  those  irrelevant  to  the  main  purpose 
soon  cease  to  be  recalled,  if  they  recur  at  all.  Just 
in  proportion  to  their  uselessness  they  drop  into 
oblivion  and  are  lost  to  sight,  unless  they  turn  up  by 
accident  in  delirium  or  disease.  The  assimilation  is 
for  those  experiences  which  bear  upon  the  object  of 
interest,  and  dissimilation  applies  to  all  others.  Sup- 
pose my  object  to  be  science.  This  assumes  some 
measure  of  maturity.  I  have  some  conception  of 
the  facts  which  I  wish  to  see  and  appropriate.  I 
am  on  the  alert  for  them,  and,  as  they  occur  relevant 
to  my  pursuit,  I  note  them  more  distinctly  and  they 
recur  more  easily  to  association.  But  all  that  has 
no  pertinence  for  my  scientific  end  is  left  to  perish 
in  obliviscence.  It  is  dissociated  from  the  main  group 
of  facts  related  to  my  primary  interest,  and  the  mind 
coordinates  and  organizes  that  experience  which  is 
collectively  concerned  with  its  object.  The  disso- 
ciation of  irrelevant  facts  begins  the  process  of  ob- 
liviscence which  may  result  in  amnesia  of  them,  that 
is,  such  obliviscence  that  they  cannot  be  recalled 
when  needed,  or  recognized  if  accident  should  hap- 
pen to  bring  them  to  consciousness.  Thousands  of 
my  daily  experiences  thus  are  relegated  to  unused 
recesses  of  mind  because  they  have  no  important 
place  in  my  main  interest.  I  do  not,  or  may  not, 
connect  the  objects  on  my  desk  with  my  scientific 
theories,  nor  my  pleasure  in  eating  my  meals,  nor 


DISSOCIATION  115 

my  scattered  thoughts  in  my  walks  nor  any  of  the 
little  passing  objects  of  irrelevant  interest.  They 
are  dropped  out  of  attention  and  relation  to  the  great 
facts  connected  with  the  idea  determining  the  main 
stream  of  consciousness.  Normal  amnesia  or  forget- 
fulness  is  thus  a  healthy  act,  and  it  is  only  in  the 
dissociation  which  buries  the  needful  that  we  dis- 
cover initial  disturbances  to  normal  action.  But  in 
ordinary  life  this  dissociation  is  only  the  sign  of 
economic  mental  processes  and  systematizing  ten- 
dencies of  thought  and  investigation. 

Dissociation  is  greatly  encouraged  if  it  is  not  pro- 
duced, by  reverie  and  abstraction.  These  are  mental 
states  of  very  great  concentration,  and  prevent  what 
we  may  call  the  synthetic  consciousness,  the  power 
and  habit  of  mind  in  which  we  take  note  of  its  com- 
plex incidents.  Thus,  in  looking  at  a  landscape, 
I  may  observe  all  its  incidents  and  characteristics, 
but  if  I  take  an  abstract  state  of  mind  toward  it 
I  may  neglect  absolutely  everything  in  it  but  the 
one  feature  attracting  my  attention.  There  are 
types  of  mind  to  whom  this  reverie  or  abstraction 
becomes  so  narrowing  that  the  commonest  incidents 
in  the  field  of  sensation  are  neglected.  I  may  be 
thinking  of  a  mathematical  problem,  and  be  run 
over  by  a  vehicle.  I  may  be  so  absorbed  in  my 
thoughts  that  I  do  not  hear  what  is  said  to  me,  or 
what  is  said  does  not  immediately  displace  attention. 
The  indirect  field  of  consciousness  is  full  of  neglected 
incidents  whenever  there  is  any  concentration  of 
mind,  and  the  deeper  the  concentration  the  more  im- 
portant the  facts  dissociated  and  neglected.     When 


116    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

this  indirect  field  makes  no  impression  on  the  occu- 
pied consciousness,  it  lapses  into  complete  forget- 
fulness  for  any  future  recognition,  even  though  it 
be  recalled  and  become  a  part  of  any  present  con- 
sciousness. In  this  case  it  will  appear  as  a  new  fact 
and  not  as  one  previously  known.  The  reverie  and 
abstraction  begin  the  segregation  of  elements  that 
might  otherwise  enrich  the  general  content  of  con- 
sciousness. The  cleavage  produced  by  reverie  and 
abstraction  between  the  idea  that  has  seized  con- 
sciousness and  what  is  in  the  indirect  field  varies  in 
an  indeterminate  way.  It  may  involve  so  distinct 
a  separation  that  no  future  association  is  possible, 
or  it  may  be  so  narrow  as  to  linger  in  the  field  as 
an  annoyance  until  recognized.  But  in  all  the  vari- 
ous stages  and  degrees  of  it,  the  dissociation  marks 
a  tendency  quite  as  natural  to  the  mind  as  associa- 
tion, and  shows  forces  that  may  develop  into  com- 
plete obliviscence. 

Reverie  and  abstraction  are  a  type  of  fixed  ideas, 
though  they  may  represent  a  transient  and  normal 
form  of  them.  They  are  related  to  the  typical  fixed 
idea  because  they  result  in  that  exclusion  of  asso- 
ciated and  proximate  experiences  which  would  indi- 
cate a  fuller  adjustment  to  one's  environment.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  healthiest  condition  of  con- 
sciousness is  that  which  admits  to  its  ken  as  many 
of  the  elements  of  experience  as  possible.  We  are 
constantly  beset  by  sensory  stimuli  from  all  quarters 
of  our  immediate  and  remote  environment,  and  the 
more  of  them  that  receive  our  attention  the  more 
healthily  adjusted  we  are  to  that  environment.     But 


DISSOCIATION  IIT 

there  are  differences  of  value  in  various  stimuli,  and 
some  can  rightly  be  ignored  and  those  of  interest  to 
our  ends  selected.  If  I  am  walking  east,  I  do  not 
have  to  adjust  my  movements  to  objects  west  of  me; 
if  I  am  picking  fruit  from  a  tree,  I  do  not  have  to 
reckon  with  the  noise  of  a  passing  train,  though  if 
I  am  talking  with  my  neighbor  I  do  have  to  reckon 
with  it.  Our  adjustments  must  reckon  with  some  ele- 
ments of  experience,  though  they  can  neglect  others, 
and  the  healthy  nature  is  the  one  which  can  select 
intelligently  the  stimuli  and  experiences  which  are  to 
be  appreciated  and  those  which  are  to  be  depreciated. 
These  will  vary  with  the  object  which  the  mind  has 
before  itself.  Reverie  and  abstraction  may  divert 
attention  from  necessary  influences.  This,  however, 
will  depend  upon  the  general  balance  of  the  individ- 
ual's nature,  and  there  is  no  hard  and  fast  rule  for 
determining  the  right  habit  in  this  matter.  What  we 
wish  to  note  here  is  the  fact  that  these  conditions 
of  concentrated  attention  and  absorption  in  one  idea 
or  stimulus,  to  the  entire  neglect  of  others,  can  be 
judiciously  permitted  only  when  there  are  no  natural 
tendencies  to  fixed  ideas.  It  is  out  of  exclusive  ab- 
sorption in  one  experience  that  the  crankisms  of  the 
world  and  certain  forms  of  insanity  arise.  Excessive 
reverie  and  abstraction  must  lead  to  these  when  other 
interests  do  not  come  in  to  give  flexibility  to  our 
characters. 

Distraction  is  the  opposite  vice.  It  consists  in 
excessive  submission  to  stimuli  about  us  and  to  mem- 
ories capriciously  recalled,  and  the  failure  to  make 
selection  from  them  of  some  one  or  more  for  a  per- 


118   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

sistent  interest  of  the  mind.  The  man  who  is  at- 
tracted hither  and  thither  by  every  wind  of  circum- 
stance and  temptation,  who  has  no  selected  interest 
to  determine  the  pursuit  of  some  definite  end  and  the 
neglect  of  other  influences  about  him,  is  at  the  mercy 
of  every  sensation  he  experiences  and  every  idea  that 
caprice  in  reproduction  will  instigate.  In  this  con- 
dition every  idea  and  every  sensation  have  equal 
value.  Between  distraction  and  abstraction,  between 
diversion  and  reverie  of  the  extreme  types,  lies  the 
mean  of  healthy  mental  action.  Concentration  will 
not  tend  to  abnormally  fixed  ideas  if  it  is  attended, 
or  if  at  any  suitable  moment  it  can  be  attended,  by 
the  appropriate  distraction.  This  means  that  we 
cannot  healthily  lose  sight  of  the  complexity  of  our 
lives.  We  may  well  choose  one  end  to  emphasize,  but 
other  ends  should  not  be  neglected  if  they  have  any 
relation  at  all  to  the  main  suit.  The  stress  and  strain 
of  too  much  fixed  interest  and  attention  only  wears 
out  the  mind,  while  it  leaves  aspects  of  its  nature 
undeveloped.  Consequently  a  measure  of  distraction 
is  necessary  as  the  corrective  of  a  one-sided  develop- 
ment. It  seems  that  our  best  estate  is  in  the  media- 
tion of  two  opposite  tendencies,  a  peculiarity  of  the 
development  of  all  complex  organisms.  Either  ex- 
treme involves  the  abnormal,  and  in  distraction  and 
abstraction  we  find  types  of  mental  temperament 
and  action  that  enable  us  in  the  normal  life  to  detect 
the  essential  forces  at  work  in  producing  the  ab- 
normal. 

Let  me  summarize.    We  have  in  any  stream  of  sen- 
sations and  memories  a  constant  gravitation  of  the 


g^i^'iv    DISSOCIATION  119 

mind  toward  some  of  them  away  from  others,  and 
in  proportion  as  this  is  intense  and  selective  with 
reference  to  a  main  interest,  we  have  the  synthetic 
association  and  cohesion  of  some  and  the  dissocia- 
tion of  others.  First  we  neglect  some  elements  of 
the  complex  experience,  and  they  are  not  so  easily 
recalled.  Then  we  begin  to  neglect  some  of  the 
incidents  in  recall  until  only  the  most  important  are 
left  for  our  attention.  If  any  interest  in  life  changes 
the  importance  of  all  the  facts  that  were  once  at 
ready  disposal,  they  retire  into  oblivion  and  become 
completely  dissociated  from  our  normal  mental  life. 
Concentration  selects  and  gives  cohesion  to  appro- 
priate incidents,  and  distraction  scatters  and  weakens 
accomplishment.  But  in  the  normal  action  associa- 
tion and  dissociation  are  balanced  with  reference  to 
the  healthy  development  of  the  individual,  and  we  can 
seek  only  in  the  abnormal  those  cases  which  repre- 
sent the  isolated  action  of  each  influence. 

Dissociation  is  especially  characteristic  of  the  ab- 
normal life.  It  is  not  limited  to  mere  obliviscence  or 
suppression  from  memory  of  the  material  of  reten- 
tion. It  is  not  exclusively  a  defect  of  reproduction 
or  a  separation  of  mnemonic  incidents  from  their 
appropriate  place  in  the  stream  of  experience.  It 
also  shows  itself  in  the  very  field  of  sensation,  as  pos- 
sibly we  may  ultimately  ascertain  that  distraction 
and  abstraction,  supposedly  mental  conditions  only, 
are  definitely  correlated  with  sensory  peculiarities. 
It  is  in  abnormal  sensations,  or  rather  in  the  absence 
of  them,  that  we  discover  the  first  traces  of  the  ten- 
dency to  mental  dissociation^  and  some  very  remark- 


120    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

able     psychological     phenomena     are     apparent     in 
them. 

The  first  and  simplest  illustration  of  this  dissocia- 
tion in  sensation  is  in  the  phenomenon  which  shows 
a  limitation  of  the  field  of  vision.  It  is  very  frequent 
in  hysterical  cases.  It  means  that  a  part  of  the  ret- 
ina appears  to  be  insensible,  as  objects  throwing 
their  image  on  this  apparently  insensible  point  are 
not  consciously  perceived.  They  are  apparently 
non-existent  for  vision.  The  amount  of  the  retina 
thus  showing  apparent  insensibility  varies  with  the 
patients  and  often  in  the  same  patient  with  different 
conditions  of  the  mind  and  functional  action.  The 
phenomenon  is  determined  by  an  instrument  called 
the  perimeter.  It  measures  the  sensitive  field  and 
determines  its  relation  to  the  known  visual  senso- 
rium  in  normal  cases.  Usually,  that  is,  the  normal 
eye  perceives  objects  far  in  the  indirect  field.  We 
can  see  almost  at  right  angles  to  the  point  in  the 
central  field.  But  in  cases  of  limitation  of  this  field, 
we  may  not  see  one-half  of  the  field.  We  may  see 
no  farther  than  thirty  or  fifty  degrees  from  the 
median  plane,  which  is  the  central  point.  But  the 
chief  matter  of  interest  is  that  experiments  have 
shown  that  the  subject  may  subconsciously  perceive 
objects  that  are  not  consciously  perceived  at  all. 
It  is  found  in  hypnosis  of  these  cases  that  the  im- 
pressions not  consciously  noticed  in  the  normal  state 
are  remembered,  which  shows  that  the  function  of  the 
retina  is  normal,  but  that  the  sensation  on  the  ap- 
parently insensible  part  of  it  is  dissociated  from  the 
synthetic  grasp  of  the  normal  condition,  and  taken 


DISSOCIATION  in 

account  of  only  by  the  subliminal  activities.  The 
same  phenomenon  has  been  remarked  in  the  various 
anaesthesias  of  touch.  Sometimes  this  anaesthesia  is 
only  partial.  The  hands  or  the  feet  or  special  loci 
of  the  body  are  anaesthetic,  that  is,  apparently  in- 
sensible to  tactual  objects.  The  whole  surface  of 
the  tactual  periphery  may  be  thus  affected.  I  saw 
a  case  of  this  kind  in  one  instance.  But  it  is  found, 
in  some  cases  at  least,  that  the  stimulus  is  subcon- 
sciously perceived  and  understood,  as  in  the  limitation 
of  the  field  of  vision.  All  that  has  occurred  has  been 
the  dissociation  of  some  tactual  sensations  from  oth- 
ers or  all  the  tactual  sensations  from  those  of  the 
other  senses. 

This  sensory  dissociation  or  disintegration  is  the 
precursor  or  the  analogue  of  the  same  process  in  our 
memories,  where  the  attraction  between  ideas  and 
experiences  is  not  sufficient  to  synthetize  them  or  to 
reproduce  them  for  association  and  synthesis.  It 
tends  to  place  the  past  beyond  recall,  and  may  be 
occasioned  in  various  ways.  It  may  be  the  result 
of  persistent  ideas,  of  concentrated  interest,  or  of 
accident  and  disease.  I  shall  enumerate  a  number  of 
incidents  of  it. 

Take  a  case  reported  from  the  Salpetriere.  "  The 
patient  is  nineteen  years  old.  She  came  to  the  hos- 
pital on  the  5th  of  June,  1894,  and  was  suffering 
from  disturbances  of  memory.  Examination  revealed 
the  following  symptoms:  Total  anaesthesia  of  the 
skin  and  of  the  mucous  membranes,  limitation  of  the 
field  of  vision,  disturbances  of  the  color  sense.  As 
to  the  disturbances  of  memory,  the  patient  lost  all 


122    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

reminiscences  for  all  that  she  had  lived  through  since 
the  26th  of  May,  189 4.  Patient  remembers,  however, 
that  she  has  had  a  violent  emotion  on  that  day;  a 
gendarme  came  to  her  and  served  her  official  sum- 
mons. From  this  point  of  time  she  remembers  noth- 
ing at  all.  She  lost  all  capacity  for  synthetizing  new 
experiences  in  her  narrowed  moment  of  self-con- 
sciousness. Now,  when  the  patient's  eyes  and  ears 
were  closed,  she  rapidly  fell  into  a  sleeplike  state; 
it  was  not  the  normal  sleep;  it  was  rather  a  som- 
nambulic state.  In  this  state  the  lost  memories  and 
sensibilities  returned." 

The  celebrated  Ansel  Bourne  case,  reported  to  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  by  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson,  affords  a  most  interesting  case  of  disso- 
ciation, and  that  of  the  present  from  the  past  life, 
or  perhaps  better,  the  past  from  the  present.  This 
man  disappeared  from  his  home  and  was  given  up  for 
lost.  Six  weeks  later  he  turned  up  in  his  normal 
state  in  a  distant  town,  and  not  knowing  how  he  had 
gotten  there.  In  the  meantime  he  had  been  in  a 
somnambulic  state,  not  recognizable  by  any  one  with 
whom  he  came  into  contact,  and  was  keeping  a  junk- 
shop  in  this  town,  while  his  occupation  previously 
had  been  that  of  a  minister.  When  he  awakened 
from  his  abnormal  state  he  did  not  know  where  he 
was,  and  his  actions  aroused  the  solicitude  of  the 
landlady  with  whom  he  was  boarding.  A  physician 
was  called,  and  this  individual  was  on  the  point  of 
sending  him  to  the  insane  asylum,  when  it  was  sug- 
gested that  he  act  on  the  statements  of  the  patient 
that  he  had  come  from  a  certain  place  in  another 


DISSOCIATION  1«S 

State,  naming  it.  A  telegram  in  accordance  with 
these  directions  brought  a  nephew  to  recognize  his 
uncle.  There  was  no  memory  of  the  normal  life 
in  this  somnambulic  state,  and  in  the  somnambulic 
state  no  memory  of  the  normal.  Persuaded  by  Prof. 
James  and  Dr.  Hodgson  to  try  hypnosis,  he  yielded, 
and  the  result  was  a  complete  and  detailed  account 
of  what  had  happened  to  the  man  during  these  six 
weeks.  The  facts  were  verified  by  independent  in- 
quiry. The  dissociation  of  one  life  from  the  other 
was  complete  in  all  but  a  few  fragmentary  incidents. 

I  have  just  received  an  instance  from  a  corre- 
spondent who  narrates  his  own  experience.  He  had 
an  attack  of  typhoid  fever.  One  day  he  became 
lucid  enough  to  recognize  two  friends  taking  notes 
of  his  talk,  but  he  did  not  know  what  the  talk  was. 
It  turned  out  that  he  had  recited  pages  of  the  Cid, 
the  first  chapter  of  the  New  Testament  in  Greek, 
and  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility  in  Latin.  When 
he  recovered  he  could  not  repeat  any  of  them.  But 
in  his  earlier  days  he  had  been  very  fond  of  the 
Cid  and  had  read  the  Greek  Testament. 

Dr.  Abercrombie  relates  a  case  in  which  a  surgeon 
who  had  met  with  an  accident  gave  minute  directions 
for  his  own  treatment,  but  was  found  to  have  lost 
all  remembrance  of  his  wife  and  children.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  wrote  one  of  his  novels  during  recovery  from 
illness,  and  forgot  all  about  it  as  soon  as  he  recov- 
ered. Dr.  Carpenter  tells  a  case  in  which  a  min- 
ister repeated  a  service  on  a  following  Sunday  which 
he  had  performed  on  the  previous  Sunday,  and  re- 


124    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

membered  nothing  about  the  first  service.  I  quote  the 
account. 

"  A  dissenting  minister,  apparently  in  perfectly 
sound  health,  went  through  an  entire  pulpit  service 
on  a  certain  Sunday  morning  with  the  most  perfect 
consistency,  —  his  choice  of  hymns  and  lessons,  and 
his  extempore  prayer,  being  all  related  to  the  subject 
of  his  sermon.  On  the  following  Sunday  morning, 
he  went  through  the  introductory  part  of  the  service 
in  precisely  the  same  manner,  —  giving  out  the  same 
hymns,  reading  the  same  lessons  and  directing  his 
extempore  pra3^er  in  the  same  channel.  He  then  gave 
out  the  same  text,  and  preached  the  very  same  ser- 
mon as  he  had  done  on  the  previous  Sunday.  When 
he  came  down  from  the  pulpit,  it  was  found  that  he 
had  not  the  smallest  remembrance  of  having  gone 
through  precisely  the  same  service  on  the  previous 
Sunday ;  and  when  he  was  assured  of  it,  he  felt  con- 
siderable uneasiness  lest  his  lapse  of  memory  should 
indicate  some  impending  attack  of  brain  disease. 
None  such,  however,  supervened ;  and  no  rationale 
can  be  given  of  this  curious  occurrence,  the  subject 
of  it  not  being  liable  to  fits  of  '  absence  of  mind,' 
and  not  having  had  his  thoughts  engrossed  at  the 
time  by  any  other  special  preoccupation." 

Dr.  Carpenter  mentions  another  instance  in  which 
the  memory  of  words  was  so  disturbed  that  when  the 
patient  called  on  a  friend  he  asked  the  son  how  his 
wife  was,  meaning  his  mother.  "  About  the  same 
time,  he  told  a  friend  that  '  he  had  had  his  umbrella 
washed,'  the  meaning  of  which  was  gradually  dis- 
covered to  be  that  he  had  had  his  hair  cut."     A 


DISSOCIATION  126 

clergyman  confused  "  brother  "  and  "  sister  "  and 
"  gospel  "  and  "  epistle."  The  resemblances  in  these 
cases  were  associated  and  the  differences  dissociated. 
In  one  it  was  the  relationship  which  was  the  same, 
in  the  other  the  meaning,  and  in  both  the  phonetic 
element  was  dissociated. 

Dr.  Boris  Sidis  reports  a  most  remarkable  case  of 
temporarily  lapsed  personality,  which  had  such  a 
careful  investigation  by  himself  and  a  colleague  that 
it  will  certainly  become  classic.  It  is  called  the 
Hanna  case.  Mr.  Hanna  was  a  clergyman.  While 
returning  home  on  horseback  from  town,  he  at- 
tempted to  alight,  lost  his  footing,  and  fell  to  the 
ground  head  foremost.  He  was  picked  up  uncon- 
scious. He  lay  in  this  state  for  two  hours.  He 
showed  no  signs  of  recovering  consciousness,  and 
heroic  means  were  adopted  to  restore  him  to  con- 
sciousness. "  Finally  he  opened  his  eyes,  looked 
around,  moved  his  arm,  then  sat  upright  in  bed, 
arose,  reached  toward  one  of  the  physicians  and  at- 
tempted to  push  him."  A  struggle  followed,  and 
he  was  finally  strapped  to  the  bed.  At  the  suggestion 
of  a  stranger  the  straps  were  removed,  and  the  pa- 
tient remained  quiet,  but  showed  that  he  did  not 
know  where  he  was  or  what  the  meaning  of  words 
was.  It  soon  became  apparent  that  he  had  completely 
lost  all  his  knowledge  and  personal  identity.  He 
was  in  the  mental  condition  of  an  infant,  and  could 
not  even  make  his  hunger  known  for  lack  of  com- 
prehending it.  He  began  the  learning  of  absolutely 
everything  as  an  infant  would.  Gradually,  through 
various  means  involving  the  reassociation  of  his  new 


I 


1^6    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

experiences  with  old  ones  that  were  recalled  but  not 
recognized,  the  man  was  restored  to  his  health  and 
little  trace  of  his  accident  seemed  left.  But  the  inter- 
esting point  in  connection  with  this  dissociation  of 
his  past  from  the  present  sensations  was  the  content 
of  some  of  his  dreams,  after  he  had  gotten  far 
enough  along  to  tell  them.  He  did  not  remember  the 
incidents  which  they  contained,  but  when  told,  they 
were  recognized  by  his  parents,  who  remembered  them 
as  incidents  in  the  man's  life  in  another  State.  These 
were  recalled  in  the  dream-life,  narrated  in  the  wak- 
ing state,  but  not  recognized  by  himself  as  a  part 
of  the  patient's  life  before  the  accident.  His  normal 
experience  was  dissociated  equally  from  his  present 
life  and  the  consciousness  of  his  dreams  in  the  waking 
state. 

Dr.  Albert  Wilson  reports  a  case  of  a  young  girl, 
healthy  and  normal,  who  was  attacked  by  influenza, 
recovered,  but  suff^ered  a  relapse  from  too  early  ex- 
posure to  fresh  air,  and  was  near  death  several  times 
in  a  condition  something  like  a  trance.  Recovery 
from  this  condition  was  followed  by  the  loss  of  all 
her  memories,  including  her  own  name  and  the  names 
and  identity  of  her  parents.  Like  the  Hanna  case, 
she  had  to  learn  many  things  anew,  and  it  was  long 
before  any  association  between  her  present  and  the 
past  was  eff^ected,  so  complete  had  been  the  cleavage 
or  dissociation  caused  by  her  illness  and  its  cerebral 
eff^ects. 

Another  case  is  reported  by  Dr.  Boris  Sidis. 
"  The  patient,  otherwise  a  strong  and  healthy  man, 
but  extremely  sensitive  and  nervous,  used  to  fall  into 


DISSOCIATION  127 

subconscious  states,  preceded  by  what  may  be  termed 
sensory  aura  (a  sign  of  the  oncoming  attack),  this 
being  uniformly  a  sensation  of  green.  The  subcon- 
scious state  lasted  from  about  half  an  hour  to  an 
hour  and  more,  the  patient  often  becoming  violent, 
having  hallucinations,  making  attempts  to  assault  his 
sister-in-law  in  the  presence  of  his  wife  and  bystand- 
ers ;  fighting  people,  beating  cruelly  his  best  friends, 
and  even  attempting  in  a  violent  fit  of  anger  to  throw 
out  through  the  window  his  own  little  baby,  whom  in 
his  normal  state  he  greatly  loves  and  adores.  When 
the  subconscious  state  works  itself  off  and  gradually 
approaches  its  termination,  the  patient  becomes  ex- 
hausted and  falls  into  a  deep  sleep,  which  sometimes 
lasts  as  long  as  fifteen  hours  or  more.  On  emerging 
from  this  sleep,  the  patient  remembers  nothing  of 
what  had  taken  place  during  the  subconscious  state. 
The  memories,  however,  were  not  lost;  they  were 
present  subconsciously,  and  were  brought  to  light 
by  the  induction  of  hypnoidal  states." 

Instances  of  this  kind  could  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely, but  they  would  only  illustrate  the  splitting 
off  from  the  normal  consciousness  and  its  access  many 
of  the  present  sensations  and  past  ones,  the  disso- 
ciation of  experiences  which  ought  to  be  associated 
and  to  cohere  tenaciously  in  the  normal  condition. 
They  are  but  exaggerated  forms  of  this  disintegra- 
tion which  has  to  characterize  even  the  normal  life, 
and  they  represent  just  the  reverse  of  those  remark- 
able resurrections  of  memories  mentioned  in  the  last 
chapter.  There  we  found  a  number  of  instances 
in  which  little  incidents  not  naturally  recallable  were 


128   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

resurrected  by  some  accident  or  unusual  action  of 
association.  Here  we  find  these  experiences  lost  and 
not  reproducible.  Dissociation  thus  is  a  defect  of 
reproduction,  association  is  its  normal  function, 
retention  being  the  same  for  all  conditions,  normal 
and  abnormal.  Dissociation  determines  obliviscence, 
and  association  remembrance  or  recognition,  though 
there  are  numerous  instances  in  which  reproduction 
does  its  work  and  recognition  fails  in  its  functions. 
But  before  recognition  can  be  expected  to  act,  re- 
production has  to  take  place,  and  if  dissociation  acts 
recognition  is  impossible.  Dissociation  thus  becomes 
the  initial  step  in  the  diseases  of  personality.  Asso- 
ciation builds  up  complex  personality;  dissociation 
dissolves  it,  and  the  measure  of  a  sound  or  a  defect- 
ive intellect  in  this  respect  will  be  proportioned,  the 
one  to  the  range  of  experience  within  the  command 
of  association,  and  the  other  to  the  extent  to  which 
dissociation  disintegrates  memory. 


CHAPTER    VI 


ILLUSIONS 


In  popular  parlance  "  illusion  "  is  a  very  compre- 
hensive term.  It  is  almost  synonymous  with  that  of 
"  error."  Sully  remarks  that  with  many  it  suggests 
even  insanity.  But  this  for  the  psychologist  is  quite 
as  much  an  "  illusion  "  as  any  error  of  perception. 
In  looser  expression  it  may  do  good  service  as  a  name 
for  various  errors  of  perception  and  judgment,  but 
it  should  never  be  mistaken  for  those  organic  and 
fixed  disturbances  which  are  implied  by  insanity  and 
persistent  hallucinations.  It  more  generally  imports 
those  temporary  variations  from  the  normal  stand- 
ard of  perception  that  induce  us  to  disregard  what 
we  call  illusions  in  our  adaptive  life.  In  the  present 
discussion  of  them,  therefore,  we  must  give  illusion 
a  sufficiently  definite  meaning  to  distinguish  it,  on 
the  one  hand,  from  normal  mental  operations  and 
on  the  other  from  hallucination,  and  perhaps  also 
from  the  graver  mental  disturbances  involved  in 
pathology.  It  is  also  distinguishable  from  fallacy, 
which  is  an  error  in  reasoning. 

Illusion  is  usually  defined  as  an  error  of  percep- 
tion, and,  if  too  narrow  limits  are  not  assigned  to 
"  perception,"  there  can  be  no  objection  to  this  con- 

129 


130    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ception  of  it.  But  often,  owing  to  certain  technical 
limitations  assignable  to  perception  and  to  the  inter- 
position of  judgment  in  the  phenomena,  illusion  is 
sometimes  regarded  as  an  error  of  judgment.  This 
conception  presumably  distinguishes  it  from  fallacy, 
which,  as  just  remarked,  is  an  error  of  reasoning. 
There  are  certain  errors  of  judgment  which  either 
participate  in  illusion  or  constitute  it,  and  whether 
it  is  limited  to  this  or  not  will  depend  upon  the  place 
assigned  to  mental  phenomena  often  ascribed  to  per- 
ception. No  doubt  it  is  hard  to  fix  the  limits  between 
perception  and  judgment,  as  both  are  so  organically 
related  to  the  most  fundamental  of  our  elementary 
states  of  knowledge,  and  psychologists  have  varied 
so  much  in  the  exact  functions  to  be  named  by  per- 
ception that  they  give  correspondingly  elastic  con- 
ception to  the  phenomena  of  illusion.  Perhaps  in 
the  distinction  from  hallucination,  which  is  an  or- 
ganic disturbance,  we  have  the  best  limitation  of 
illusion,  though  it  is  often  hard  in  concrete  cases  to 
distinguish  between  them.  In  type,  however,  they  are 
easily  enough  distinguishable,  as  hallucinations  have 
a  fixity  in  most  cases  that  prevents  any  correction 
of  their  occurrence,  while  illusions  are  usually  cor- 
rected very  easily.  Hallucinations  are  more  or  less 
permanent  aberrations  of  function;  illusions  are 
more  or  less  temporary  aberrations  of  function,  and 
usually  not  the  same  functions  exactly  that  are  in- 
volved in  the  former,  though  they  interpenetrate. 
Illusion  may  then  be  regarded  as  comprehending 
errors  of  perception  and  judgment  which  are  more 


ILLUSIONS  131 

closely  related  to  the  normal  actions  of  the  mind  than 
are  hallucinations. 

Sully's  definition  is  one  of  the  best.  He  defines 
illusion  provisionally  "  as  any  species  of  error  which 
counterfeits  the  form  of  immediate,  self-evident,  or 
intuitive  knowledge,  whether  as  sense-perception  or 
otherwise."  This  distinguishes  it  from  normal  men- 
tal action,  but  does  not  make  the  distinction  from 
hallucination  apparent.  To  me  illusion  lies  between 
the  normal  and  hallucinatory  perception,  and  is  dis- 
tinguished from  both  of  them;  from  the  first  in 
being  an  error  and  from  the  second  in  being  less 
fixed  and  organic.  I  should  emphasize  the  inclusion 
of  judgment  in  the  phenomena,  and  perhaps  lay  the 
most  blame  upon  it  for  the  error,  while  in  hallucina- 
tion I  should  attribute  the  primary  cause  to  abnormal 
sensory  functions.  Possibly  we  might  say  that  the 
primary  distinction  between  illusion  and  hallucina- 
tion would  be  just  this:  that  in  illusion  the  primary 
source  of  error  is  mistaken  judgment,  and  in  hallu- 
cination the  primary  source  is  abnormal  sensory  ac- 
tion more  or  less  organically  aberrant.  They  will, 
of  course,  often  shade  into  each  other,  and  hence  I 
am  here  but  distinguishing  the  types,  a  distinction 
which  can  be  made  more  clear  by  illustration. 

As  a  clear  illustration  of  illusions  I  may  give  the 
following  in  my  own  experience.  When  a  boy  I  was 
riding  early  in  the  morning  to  the  Ohio  State  fair. 
As  we  had  to  ride  some  twenty  miles,  we  started  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  I  had  awakened 
from  a  sleep  after  riding  some  seven  miles.  It  was 
very  early  dawn,  and,  on  looking   out  of  the  car- 


132    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

riage  through  the  woods,  I  saw  an  immense  palace  of 
Grecian  architecture.  I  was  on  the  point  of  remark- 
ing to  my  father  that  I  did  not  know  there  was  such 
a  palace  in  this  locality,  when  I  noticed  it  changing 
its  form.  In  a  moment,  and  before  I  could  speak  of 
it,  the  palace  vanished  into  an  open  field  beyond  the 
woods.  The  trees  and  skies  had  suggested  the  palace, 
and  the  motion  of  the  carriage  interrupted  the  illu- 
sion. 

Again,  after  lecturing  to  my  class  at  Columbia 
University  on  the  subject  of  space-perception,  I  was 
walking  down  Madison  Avenue,  on  which  there  are 
no  trees  whatever.  But  at  a  certain  point  I  noticed 
ahead  of  me  both  sides  of  the  avenue  lined  with  trees. 
Astonished  at  the  vision,  I  stopped  to  see  what  it 
meant,  and  saw  some  distance  in  front  of  me  a  mov- 
ing van  with  a  picture  of  a  street  in  a  city  lined 
with  trees  on  both  sides,  and  this  had  fitted  exactly 
into  the  perspective  of  Madison  Avenue.  The  illu- 
sion was  of  course  quickly  corrected. 

The  illusion  in  these  cases  consists  in  the  existence 
of  a  sense-perception  more  or  less  suggestive  of  the 
thing  apparently  seen,  and  the  state  of  mind  being 
favorable  to  seeing  that  particular  thing,  the  sensa- 
tion or  impression  is  correspondingly  distorted,  and 
an  object  is  apparently  seen  which  is  not  there. 
Moreover,  the  illusion  is  characterized  by  an  impres- 
sion or  stimulus  in  the  sense  which  does  the  apparent 
perceiving,  and  the  whole  effect  is  quickly  corrected, 
as  it  is  not  due  to  organic  disturbance  in  the  sensory 
centres,  but  rather  to   temporary  preoccupation   of 


ILLUSIONS  133 

the  interpreting  functions  in  a  way  to  distort  the 
sense-perception. 

An  illustration  of  an  hallucination  is  the  follow- 
ing. A  certain  gentleman  has  only  to  throw  his 
head  back  upon  his  collar,  when  the  pressure  of  the 
collar  on  a  blood-vessel  in  the  neck  gives  rise  to  the 
appearance  of  a  human  hand  moving  down  from 
above  his  head  before  his  face.  To  stop  it  the  man 
has  only  to  put  his  head  in  its  normal  position  and 
remove  the  pressure  of  the  collar  on  his  neck.  Here 
we  have  a  tactual  stimulus  and  a  visual  appearance, 
and  hence  a  phenomenon  that  cannot  be  technically 
called  an  illusion,  as  it  does  not  represent  a  distorted 
sense-impression  within  the  sense  having  the  per- 
ception. This  is  not  always  the  characteristic  of  an 
hallucination,  but  when  it  does  occur  it  best  repre- 
sents the  functional  action  involved  in  hallucination, 
and  such  action  is  called  secondary  stimulus,  because 
it  involves  stimulation  in  one  sense  and  reaction  in 
another,  and  is  not  properly  an  interpretation  or 
misinterpretation  of  a  proper  stimulus. 

In  another  case  a  physician  can  see  an  appari- 
tion of  his  deceased  son  in  the  left  of  the  field  of 
vision  whenever  he  turns  his  attention  to  it  or  thinks 
of  it.  Nothing  is  apparently  said  in  the  case,  and 
the  apparition  moves  with  the  motion  of  the  eyes. 
That  is,  the  effort  to  focus  on  the  apparition  avails 
to  cause  it  to  move,  showing  that  some  organic  dis- 
turbance, perhaps  either  in  the  retina  or  brain-cen- 
tre gives  rise,  with  expectancy,  to  the  apparition, 
which  seems  persistent. 

In  these  illustrations   the   primary   factor  is   not 


134    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

misinterpretation  of  sensory  stimuli,  but  abnormal 
stimuli,  and  where  they  are  secondary  they  exhibit 
distorted  central  action  of  a  sensory  character.  Illu- 
sions are  perhaps  either  primarily  misinterpretations 
of  impressions  or  these  impressions  are  more-Trearly 
like  the  normal.  But  hallucinations  persist  more 
fixedly  as  simulations  of  external  reality,  and  are 
corrected  with  much  more  difficulty,  if  they  can  be 
corrected  at  all. 

These  illustrations  suffice  to  indicate  the  distinc- 
tion between  illusions  and  hallucinations  for  general 
purposes.  I  do  not  pretend  that  they  are  accurate 
and  complete  accounts  of  either  their  nature  or  their 
differences,  but  only  that  the  criteria  provided  suffice 
for  all  practical  purposes  in  the  examination  of  prob- 
lems in  psychic  research.  As  I  have  already  re- 
marked, illusions  and  hallucinations  shade  into  each 
other  in  certain  concrete  instances,  but  in  their  types 
or  most  frequent  manifestation  illusions  are  the  pri- 
mary result  of  misinterpretation  of  a  normal  stim- 
ulus, while  hallucination  is  primarily  due  to  organic 
sensory  defects,  whether  central  or  peripheral.  Or- 
ganic intellectual  disturbances  are  sometimes  called 
hallucinations,  but  I  think  it  better  to  call  them  de- 
lusions. Of  this  again.  All  that  I  want  to  empha- 
size at  present  is  the  sensory  character  of  the  true 
hallucination,  which  persists  in  its  simulation  of  re- 
ality more  than  do  illusions.  Misinterpretation  is 
as  important  a  factor  of  illusion  as  aberrant  sensory 
action. 

We  can  perhaps  best  understand  illusions,  how- 
ever, by  dividing  them  into  their  various  types,  ac- 


ILLUSIONS  135 

cording  to  the  predominance  of  the  factor  which 
determines  their  nature.  In  a  general  division  or 
classification  of  illusions,  however,  I  wish  to  remark 
a  distinction  which  will  be  of  some  importance  in  the 
treatment  and  discussion  of  problems  in  psychic  re- 
search. This  distinction  relates  to  those  illusions 
which  characterize  all  normal  perception  and  repre- 
sent organic  conditions  of  the  sensorium,  while  an- 
other class  represent  the  influence  of  the  mental  state 
on  the  sensory  impression  to  distort  it,  or  misinter- 
pret its  meaning.  In  pursuance  of  the  idea  expressed 
in  this,  I  think  it  may  serve  a  useful  end  to  distin- 
guish illusions  by  their  relation  to  the  organism  and 
to  its  functions.  I  shall  therefore  divide  them  into 
two  general  types,  with  such  subdivisions  as  we  may 
please  to  make  or  discover.  These  two  types  I  shall 
call  OrgamJic  and  Functional  Illusions.  Both  are  as- 
sociated with  sensory  irregularities.  Organic  illu- 
sions are  those  which  represent  an  abnormal  relation 
between  stimulus  and  sensory  reaction,  and  so  may 
as  regularly  characterize  sense-perception  as  normal 
activity.  They  therefore  occur  according  to  certain 
definite  laws  of  the  organism,  and  hence  are  not  spo- 
radic or  occasional  phenomena,  but  are  quite  as  nor- 
mal in  respect  of  their  occurrence  under  their  speci- 
fied conditions  as  are  normal  perceptions.  Func- 
tional illusions  are  those  which  represent  an  abnormal 
influence  of  interpretation  or  mental  functions  on 
the  sensory  impression.  The  physiological  facts  are 
just  what  they  are  in  normal  perception,  but  some 
distortion  of  interpreting  functions  avails  to  distort 
the  apparent  object  into  something  else  than  what  it 


136    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

really  is.  We  shall  proceed  to  illustrate  and  explain 
both  types  of  illusion,  and  shall  recognize  at  the  same 
time  that  there  may  be  forms  of  such  illusions  that 
interpenetrate  or  overlap  both  these  types. 

Organic  Illiisions 

Perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  organic  illusions 
is  the  phenomenon  of  color  contrast.  If  a  piece  of 
gray  paper  be  laid  upon  a  patch  of  bright  blue,  and 
both  covered  with  a  piece  of  tissue-paper  quite  trans- 
lucent, the  gray  will  appear  to  be  yellow.  If  the 
background  on  which  the  gray  is  placed  be  yellow, 
the  gray  will  appear  blue.  If  the  background  be  red, 
the  gray  will  appear  green,  and  if  the  background 
be  green,  the  gray  will  appear  red.  Whatever  the 
cause  of  this  contrast,  or  perception  of  the  com- 
plementary color,  there  is  a  phenomenon  which  ap- 
pears to  violate  the  well-known  physiological  and 
chemical  explanation  of  color-perception.  We  seem  to 
see  colors  that  are  not  in  fact  presented  on  the  retina. 
According  to  the  normal  organic  laws  of  optics,  we 
ought  to  see  the  colors  as  they  are  presented.  But 
under  these  peculiar  conditions  we  see  a  color  that 
is  the  complementary  of  the  background,  and  the 
judgment  is  an  illusion.  This  illusion  is  organic 
because  it  is  the  uniform  experience  of  vision  in 
practically  all  people,  and  is  as  fixed  and  regular  as 
normal  perception  itself.  Only  the  conditions  of  the 
stimulus  are  abnormal  or  irregular. 

The  various  illusions  produced  by  mathematical 
perspective  in  imitation  of  solid  objects  illustrate  the 


ILLUSIONS  137 

same  kind  of  illusion.  The  geometrical  figure  of  a 
cube  can  be  seen  in  either  of  two  positions,  or  to 
represent  a  cube  in  either  of  two  positions.  It  is 
the  same  with  figures  representing  a  screen  or  a  tube. 
Take  also  the  geometrical  representation  of  a  stair- 
way which  can  be  seen  at  will  either  from  the  upper 
or  lower  side ;  in  one  as  if  for  ascent  and  in  the  other 
as  if  standing  under  it. 

Stereoscopic  pictures  and  figures  represent  the 
same  phenomenon.  They  are  drawn  so  as  to  rep- 
resent the  binocular  parallax,  which  is  always  an 
important  feature  in  normal  vision,  and  the  conse- 
quence is  that,  with  the  stereoscope,  they  appear  to 
represent  clearly  solid  objects  or  true  perspective. 
This  parallax  of  which  I  speak  is  constituted  in 
normal  vision  by  the  slight  diff*erence  between  the 
retinal  images  produced  by  solid  objects.  The  effect 
in  the  visual  process  is  to  bring  out  more  clearly 
the  perception  of  solidity,  or  the  third  dimension. 
If  we  imitate  this  parallax  or  disparateness  of  reti- 
nal images,  as  we  can  in  geometrical  figures,  we  elicit 
this  visual  process  so  as  to  produce  the  illusion  of 
solidity  where  it  does  not  exist.  This  imitation  is 
what  is  effected  in  stereoscopic  pictures.  They  are 
made  with  a  slight  difference  in  their  representation 
of  the  object,  so  that  the  retinal  images  are  not  ex- 
actly alike.  The  effect  is  apparent  solidity  as  in  real 
objects.  The  interesting  feature  of  the  fact  also 
is  that  the  solidity  or  perspective  is  as  clear  and 
stable  as  in  the  perception  of  real  objects.  We 
should  not  be  aware  of  any  illusion  in  the  phenomena 
but  for  our  consciousness  that  no  such  real  objects 


138    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

are  present  as  appear  to  be.  If  we  could  divest  our- 
selves of  the  consciousness  that  surrounding  objects 
of  a  different  kind  and  unrelated  to  the  stereoscopic 
pictures  were  not  present,  we  should  not  be  able  to 
discover  our  illusion  at  all.  The  apparent  reality 
of  what  we  see  in  such  cases  is  so  distinct  that  it 
requires  a  special  knowledge  of  the  conditions  under 
which  the  phenomena  occur  to  even  ascertain  their 
illusory  character.  The  organic  functions  of  vision 
act  normally,  and  the  phenomena  are  not  ordinarily 
interpretative,  though  that  function  is  admitted  into 
the  effect.  But  the  stimulus  or  sense-impression  is 
modified  so  as  to  take  on  the  character  of  the  stimu- 
lus of  the  real  solid  object,  and  the  mind  has  no 
alternative  to  the  judgment  which  it  forms.  The 
illusion  is  an  organic  one,  because  it  represents  the 
normal  action  of  the  sensory  process  and  is  char- 
acteristic of  all  persons. 

The  phenomena  of  mathematical  perspective  and 
light  and  shade  illustrate  the  same  general  process. 
In  real  objects  the  apparent  size  diminishes  with  the 
distance  of  the  objects  from  us.  The  intensity  of 
light  also  decreases  in  the  same  way,  and  shadows  are 
indications  of  space-relations  and  with  mathematical 
perspective  may  be  used  to  affect  the  perception  of 
distance.  If,  then,  we  draw  geometrical  figures  in 
such  a  way  as  to  imitate  the  retinal  images  of  solid 
objects  in  the  characteristics  named,  we  should  ex- 
pect to  elicit  the  natural  perception  of  distance  and 
solidity.  This  is  exactly  what  takes  place.  If  we 
draw  two  lines  so  that  they  are  not  exactly  parallel, 
but  approaching  each  other  slightly,  they  may  be 


ILLUSIONS  139 

seen  as  a  railway  track.  This  will  be  much  clearer 
if  we  have  other  appropriate  objects  drawn  in  the 
same  field.  The  representation  of  a  cube,  mentioned 
above,  illustrates  the  same  fact  also. 

Aerial  perspective,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  also 
produces  the  effect  of  modifying  our  perceptions. 
It  is  the  effect  of  the  atmosphere  on  the  judgment 
of  apparent  distance.  When  the  air  is  misty  or 
smoky  it  makes  objects  appear  more  distant.  When 
it  is  clear  they  seem  nearer.  The  effect  is  due  to 
the  association  of  distinctness  and  indistinctness  with 
the  actual  and  known  distance  of  objects.  In  normal 
vision  distant  objects  are  less  distinct  than  nearer 
objects,  and  when  any  condition  of  the  atmosphere 
reproduces  an  unnatural  distinctness  or  indistinct- 
ness, the  associated  judgment  of  distance  is  sug- 
gested. 

In  mathematical  and  aerial  perspective,  however, 
interpreting  functions  enter  very  largely  into  the 
perceptions.  The  organic  functions  are  perhaps  less 
dominant  than  in  binocular  perception,  but  they  are 
apparently  active,  though  fused  with  inference  and 
association  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  difficult  to 
recognize  the  organic  and  functional  influences. 
These  seem  to  be  present  from  the  uniform  and  fixed 
habits  of  normal  perception  in  such  circumstances. 

After-images  are  a  good  type  of  organic  illu- 
sion. If  we  look  at  the  sun  directly  for  a  few  sec- 
onds, and  then  look  at  the  sky  at  some  other  point, 
we  can  see  an  apparition  or  image  of  the  sun,  usually 
in  the  complementary  color.  This  apparent  per- 
ception of  it  may  last  some  time  before  fading  away 


140    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

into  a  mere  shadow.  If  we  look  at  a  bright  light, 
say  an  incandescent  electric  light  or  any  very  bright 
light  of  the  kind,  and  then  look  at  the  wall  or  some 
appropriate  background,  we  are  likely  to  see  a  re- 
production of  the  light  on  this  background,  and  it 
is  usually  in  some  complementary  color.  This  is 
what  is  called  an  after-image,  and  it  represents  all 
the  appearance  of  an  external  reality  like  the  orig- 
inal object  or  light.  But  for  the  circumstances  with 
which  we  are  usually  familiar  the  apparition  might 
be  taken  for  a  real  obj  ect.  I  have  been  able,  in  look- 
ing through  a  window  at  a  landscape  or  streets  of 
a  city,  to  reproduce  in  an  after-image,  by  closing 
my  eyes,  the  exact  view  at  which  I  was  looking,  with 
its  color,  perspective,  and  all.  This  exact  repro- 
duction of  the  visual  impression  as  an  apparent  ob- 
ject is  called  the  positive  after-image,  while  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  outline  or  same  image  in  the  com- 
plementary color  is  called  the  negative  after-image. 
In  both  there  is  a  retinal  reaction,  the  positive  image 
representing  the  exact  sensory  reaction  of  a  real  sen- 
sory object  or  reality.  The  phenomenon  might  be 
called  an  hallucination  but  for  its  transient  charac- 
ter. It  is,  however,  organic  in  any  case,  and  repre- 
sents erroneous  perception  in  its  maladjustment  of 
sensory  function. 

Another  type  of  illusion  illustrates  organic  influ- 
ences. I  refer  to  the  apparent  motion  of  objects 
when  it  is  we  ourselves  that  are  in  motion.  Those 
who  do  not  feel  their  own  motion  or  are  not  conscious 
of  it  in  some  way  —  and  this  is  especially  true  of 
children  at  first  —  when  in  a  train  of  moving  cars, 


ILLUSIONS  141 

will  see  the  landscape  apparently  travelling  in  the 
opposite  direction.  It  often  takes  time  and  effort 
to  correct  this  impression.  The  same  illusion  in  a 
modified  form  occurs  with  nearly  all  people  when 
waiting  for  their  train  to  start.  They  often  think 
it  has  started,  only  to  find  that  it  is  a  train  or  car 
opposite  that  is  moving  in  the  opposite  direction. 
This  illusion  is  so  strong  with  myself  that,  when  it 
occurs,  unless  I  can  look  at  some  stationary  object, 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  correct  it.  In  the  former 
instances,  those  of  the  apparently  moving  landscape, 
the  cause  is  the  real  motion  of  the  retinal  image  not 
corrected  by  the  consciousness  of  the  bodily  motion 
in  space.  I  have  seen  this  phenomenon  illustrated 
by  the  appearance  of  the  gaslight  moving  across  the 
room,  caused  by  the  actual  motion  of  the  eyes  into  a 
parallel  position  as  sleep  approached,  and  without 
the  consciousness  that  the  eyes  were  so  moving.  The 
retinal  image  of  the  light  moved  across  the  retina 
and  produced  the  illusion  of  actual  motion  in  the 
light.  In  the  case  of  the  apparent  motion  of  a  car 
opposite  the  observer,  we  have  retinal  motion  of  the 
image,  but  it  is  accompanied  by  a  tactual  illusion 
of  real  motion  of  the  car  in  which  we  sit.  We  can 
correct  it  only  by  visual  comparison  of  the  known 
impression  with  other  objects  in  the  field  that  remain 
stable.  The  tactual  illusion  or  Tiallucination,  so  to 
speak,  is  arrested.  In  all  of  them,  however,  organic 
influences  operate,  whatever  the  interpretative  func- 
tions, and  these  are  factors  undoubtedly.  But  the 
organic  reactions  of  the  sensorium  are  so  natural  a 


142   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

process  of  the  effect  that  they  may  be  regarded  as 
the  dominant  influence. 

The  localization  of  sensations  in  amputated  parts 
of  the  limbs  is  another  illustration  of  organic  illu- 
sions. Some  question  may  arise  as  to  the  nature  of 
this  phenomenon,  but  it  undoubtedly  represents  a 
judgment  of  an  existing  object  or  limb  that  is  not 
the  fact.  The  explanation  of  it  is  not  the  point  of 
interest  at  present,  but  merely  the  fact  that  sensa- 
tions are  assigned  a  locality  which  is  physically  im- 
possible under  the  circumstances. 

Narcotics  and  poisons  often  aff^ect  the  sensory 
organism  so  as  to  give  rise  to  abnormal  perceptions, 
which  are  illusory  in  comparison  with  what  is  accepted 
as  normal.  Certain  poisons  affect  color  perceptions, 
as  santonin,  according  to  Sully,  makes  colorless  ob- 
jects look  yellow. 

FwnctwnaL  Illmwns 

I  have  explained  that  functional  illusions  represent 
an  abnormal  influence  of  the  interpreting  acts  of  the 
mind,  or  inference  and  association,  in  distorting 
what  we  should  most  naturally  take  for  something 
else  than  the  apparent  perception.  In  this  concep- 
tion of  them,  however,  I  recognize  that  the  distinction 
between  them  and  organic  illusions  will  not  always 
be  clear.  They  will  often  overlap  each  other,  and 
functional  illusions  will  be  most  distinct  in  those  in- 
stances in  which  impressions  are  greatly  distorted, 
owing  to  subjective  states  of  mind.  They  will  often 
merge  even  into  fallacies  of  reasoning.     But  those 


ILLUSIONS  143 

which  are  more  closely  allied  to  errors  in  perception 
will  have  the  characteristic  of  a  misperceived  object. 

Mathematical  figures  representing  solid  objects  or 
perspective  illustrate  this  inferential  function  to  some 
extent,  though  they  ally  their  illusions  to  the  or- 
ganic type.  The  organic  element  is  indicated  in 
certain  fixed  organic  conditions  in  the  impression 
which  limit  the  inferences  which  we  might  draw  from 
their  appearances.  But  inference  and  association 
operate  in  them  to  a  sufficient  degree  to  admit  them 
at  the  same  time  to  a  place  among  the  functional 
illusions  caused  in  this  way.  Aerial  perspective  and 
intervening  objects  also  illustrate  the  same  phenom- 
ena. From  them  we  infer  perhaps  more  than  we 
see,  but  owing  to  the  peculiar  nature  of  perception 
we  seem  actually  to  see  what  is  in  fact  the  product 
of  memory  and  inference. 

An  illustration  of  functional  illusion  bordering 
on  the  organic  is  one  which  may  represent  a  frequent 
type.  There  was  a  picture  of  a  flower  in  my  room 
which,  when  seen  at  the  proper  distance,  appeared 
to  represent  a  little,  queer  old  man  doubled  up  in 
a  funny  position.  The  first  time  I  saw  this  picture 
I  did  not  recognize  the  flower,  but  thought  I  saw 
this  funny  old  man.  I  approached  the  picture  to 
see  it  more  distinctly  and  found  that  it  was  a  flower. 
I  returned  to  my  original  position,  and  the  little  old 
man  reappeared  in  place  of  the  flower,  and  never 
afterward  could  I  look  at  that  picture  at  this  dis- 
tance without  seeing  this  queer  old  man,  though  I 
knew  well  enough  that  it  was  a  flower.  The  pre- 
conception   established   by   the   first   experience   was 


144    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

strong  enough  to  prevent  the  corrected  judgment 
from  being  more  than  an  inner  judgment,  not  a 
perception.  The  illusion  always  remained.  Re- 
cently I  had  a  similar  experience  with  the  reflection 
of  a  window  and  some  candlesticks  on  a  mirror  in 
a  photograph.  The  appearance  at  a  certain  distance 
was  of  a  peculiar  old  man  with  a  very  high  skull- 
cap on  his  head.  Close  inspection  corrected  the  illu- 
sion, but  it  would  reappear  when  I  resumed  the  dis- 
tance at  which  I  first  saw  the  photograph.  The 
general  resemblance  in  the  pictures  to  the  objects 
apparently  seen  had  sufficed  to  distort  the  impres- 
sion, and  this  experience  was  sufficient  to  keep  up 
the  illusion  after  it  was  once  created. 

The  primary  influence  in  producing  the  illusions 
in  these  and  similar  instances  is  indistinctness  of  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  retinal  image.  The  evidence  of 
this  is  the  fact  that  the  illusion  disappears  when  the 
object  or  picture  is  viewed  at  close  range.  What  the 
eye  seized  was  those  characteristics  which  it  sees  most 
clearly,  and  the  mind  interprets  the  impression  in 
accordance  with  past  experience.  In  the  instances 
mentioned  the  most  distinct  features  of  the  object 
were  comparatively  clear,  and  others  were  not  clear 
enough  to  suggest  their  part  in  the  impression.  The 
consequence  was  that  the  mind  would  take  account 
of  what  it  was  most  aware  of,  and  perhaps  its  mem- 
ory and  imagination  would  unconsciously  introduce 
elements  from  the  past  and  from  constructive  ten- 
dencies of  the  mind  into  the  product.  But  leaving 
the  subjective  and  mental  influences  on  what  we  see 
out  of   account,   the  main   cause   externally   of  the 


ILLUSIONS  145 

illusion  is  indistinctness  of  the  impression  as  affected 
by  the  relation  of  the  object  to  sense.  The  causes 
of  this  indistinctness  may  be  various.  Sometimes  it 
may  be  distance,  sometimes  it  may  be  peculiarities  in 
light  and  shade  in  the  object,  and  sometimes  it  may 
be  the  dimness  of  the  light  in  which  the  object  exists. 
We  can  hardly  lay  down  any  special  law  for  all  cases, 
but  the  most  general  one,  and  this  will  be  any  influ- 
ence which  dims  the  retinal  image. 

General  illustrations  with  which  we  are  all  famil- 
iar are  found  in  the  phenomena  of  seeing  forms  in 
the  clouds,  distorting  objects  in  the  dark,  perceiving 
animal  or  human  forms  in  physical  objects,  as  the 
"  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain."  These  occur  every- 
where and  at  all  times,  and  readers  will  recall  them 
without  multiplying  instances.  It  suffices  to  empha- 
size the  cause  of  them  as  something  to  consider  when 
we  come  to  discuss  phenomena  purporting  to  repre- 
sent agencies  beyond  sense-experience. 

We  do  not  always,  if  ever,  seriously  think  of  it, 
but  pictures  are  one  of  the  best  illustrations  of  illu- 
sion that  can  be  given.  They  are  combinations  of 
light  and  shade  with  mathematical  perspective  so 
as  to  represent  real  objects.  A  good  artist  can  so 
imitate  reality  as  to  produce  what  we  call  the  illu- 
sion of  it,  that  is,  so  distinct  an  appearance  of  real 
objects  with  their  solidity  as  to  be  taken  for  them. 
The  legend  of  Apelles,  or  some  Greek  artist,  illus- 
trates this.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  painted  fruit 
so  well  that  the  birds  came  and  tried  to  peck  it. 
Landscape  views  illustrate  reality  so  perfectly  that 
one  can  easily  lose  himself  in  the  feeling  that  he  is 


146    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

looking  at  actual  scenes.  This  is  quite  noticeable 
in  good  theatrical  scenery  when  the  light  is  prop- 
erly managed,  though,  if  close  to  it,  the  view  would 
present  no  illusion  at  all.  Size,  indistinctness  of 
form  and  color,  and  various  devices  in  imitation  of 
the  influences  which  nature  uses  to  suggest  distance 
and  perspective  are  the  means  of  producing  these 
illusions  in  artificial  representations.  The  photo- 
graph does  it  to  perfection,  though  it  relies  upon 
fewer  agencies  than  are  found  in  reality.  Light 
and  shade  are  its  only  resource. 

One  very  interesting  instance  of  illusion  in  pic- 
tures is  that  with  which  we  are  all  familiar,  namely, 
the  apparent  change  of  position  in  objects  when  the 
spectator  changes  his  position.  If  we  look  at  the 
picture  of  a  person  from  either  side  and  then  change 
our  position  to  the  opposite  side,  the  person  will  have 
appeared  to  have  changed  his  position.  If  the  pic- 
ture be  that  of  a  profile  this  illusion  is  much  more 
apparent,  but  is  equally  an  illusion  in  all  other  cases. 
If  we  watch  carefully  while  we  change  our  position, 
we  shall  appear  to  see  the  person  actually  turning 
his  face  toward  us.  The  cause  of  this  is  the  simple 
fact  that,  in  plain  pictures,  which  have  no  actual 
solidity  in  their  forms,  the  view  is  the  same  for  the 
observer  in  all  positions,  and  as  the  view  is  not  the 
same  for  stationary  solid  objects,  we  naturally  see 
pictures  as  if  the  object  had  changed,  as  this  change 
in  real  objects  must  occur  if  their  impressions  re- 
main the  same  when  the  observer  changes  his  position. 
In  viewing  solid  objects,  a  change  of  position  by 
the   spectator  is  not  followed  by   exactly  the  same 


ILLUSIONS  147 

retinal  images  as  in  pictures,  and  hence  the  judg- 
ment must  be  different.  In  pictures  the  illusion  is 
due  to  the  identity  of  retinal  images  in  situations 
which  normal  experience  represents  as  different,  and 
hence  our  judgment  sees  the  phenomena  from  the 
standpoint  of  normal  experience  when  asking  for 
the  appearance  of  the  picture  as  compared  with  the 
past,  which  is  the  standard  of  judgment. 

Another  and  equally  interesting  illusion  is  the 
following:  If  we  look  at  a  windmill  wheel,  such  as 
is  used  in  wind-pumps,  while  it  is  revolving  in  a  posi- 
tion oblique  to  the  observer,  we  may  not  be  able  to 
tell  in  which  direction  it  is  revolving.  This  depends 
upon  the  question  whether  the  oblique  direction  of 
the  wheel's  axis  is  apparently  on  our  left  or  our 
right.  The  retinal  impression  or  image  is  the  same 
for  both  positions,  and  if  binocular  influences  are 
either  too  indistinct  or  imperceptible  we  are  left  only 
to  geometrical  considerations  in  the  formation  of 
our  judgments.  We  may  thus  apparently  see  the 
wheel  in  either  of  two  positions,  and  its  motion  will 
appear  to  accord  with  this  apparent  position,  now 
seeming  to  be  in  the  direction  of  left  to  right  and 
again  from  right  to  left,  and  in  either  case  com- 
pletely the  opposite  of  what  it  appears  to  be  in  the 
alternative  direction.  The  phenomenon  associates  or- 
ganic with  functional  influences. 

There  is  a  large  class  of  illusions  in  which  the 
primary  factor  in  their  production  is  the  state  of 
mind  in  the  observer.  I  recall  one  instance  in  my 
own  experience.  I  had  called  the  roll  of  my  class, 
and  a  certain  young  man  by  the  name  of  Macaulay 


148    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

was  absent,  but  came  in  before  the  end  of  the  hour. 
He  called  my  attention  to  the  fact  at  the  close  of  the 
lecture,  and  as  I  was  in  a  hurry  to  meet  another  class 
I  waited  until  I  arrived  in  another  room  to  mark  his 
attendance.  When  I  sat  down  I  noticed  a  piece  of 
paper  on  the  desk  in  front  of  me  and  underscored, 
as  I  thought,  was  the  name  Macaulay.  I  was  struck 
with  the  coincidence,  and  in  looking  at  the  word 
found  it  was  manager.  Here  the  mental  interest  in 
not  forgetting  to  note  the  presence  of  a  man  whom 
I  had  marked  as  absent  had  the  effect  of  distorting 
the  sense-impression  and  of  making  it  appear  quite 
different  from  what  it  actually  was. 

Prof.  James  narrates  a  similar  personal  experi- 
ence. "  I  remember  one  night,"  he  says,  "  in  Bos- 
ton, whilst  waiting  for  a  '  Mount  Auburn '  car  to 
bring  me  to  Cambridge,  reading  most  distinctly  that 
name  on  the  sign-board  of  a  car,  on  which,  as  I  after- 
ward learned,  '  North  Avenue '  was  painted.  The 
illusion  was  so  vivid  that  I  could  hardly  believe  my 
eyes  had  deceived  me."  This  Prof.  James  classifies 
under  "  proof-readers'  illusions,"  and  I  may  remark 
that  my  own  absorption  in  the  thought  of  what  I 
write  makes  it  exceedingly  difficult  for  me  to  detect 
errors  in  print.  I  often  see  a  word  rightly  spelled 
when  it  is  in  fact  wrongly  spelled. 

"  The  whole  past  mental  life,"  says  Sully,  "  with 
its  particular  shape  of  experience,  its  ruling  emo- 
tions, and  its  habitual  direction  of  fancy,  serves  to 
give  a  particular  color  to  new  impressions,  and  so 
to  favor  illusion.  There  is  a  '  personal  equation ' 
in  perception  as  in  belief,  —  an  amount  of  erroneous 


ILLUSIONS  149 

deviation  from  the  common  average  view  of  external 
things,  which  is  the  outcome  of  individual  tempera- 
ment and  habits  of  mind.  Thus  a  naturally  timid 
man  will  be  in  general  disposed  to  see  ugly  and  fear- 
ful objects,  where  a  perfectly  unbiased  mind  per- 
ceives nothing  of  the  kind ;  and  the  forms  which  these 
objects  of  dread  will  assume  are  determined  by  the 
character  of  his  past  experience,  and  by  the  cus- 
tomary direction  of  his  imagination." 

Such  phenomena  could  be  illustrated  at  much 
greater  length,  but  sufficient  instances  have  been 
given  to  explain  the  liability  of  the  mind  to  mistaken 
judgments  in  certain  normal  perceptions.  In  dis- 
cussing normal  sense-perception  I  remarked  the  dif- 
ficulty of  assuring  ourselves  of  an  infallible  criterion 
for  external  reality,  and  this  question  is  again  sug- 
gested by  the  phenomena  of  illusion.  But  with  the 
fact  that  illusion  does  not  affect  the  existence  of 
external  reality,  but  only  the  nature  of  it,  we  may 
remark  that  the  skeptical  limitations  which  it  as- 
signs to  our  perceptions  relate  to  the  correctness  of 
our  conceptions  and  judgments  regarding  the  totality 
of  this  external  object.  The  maladjustment  between 
sensation  or  impression  and  the  interpreting  function 
of  the  mind  avails  to  create  the  idea  that  we  see  what 
we  do  not  see,  but  infer,  though  we  do  see  something. 
The  discovery  of  illusion  only  puts  us  on  our  guard 
against  assuming  more  in  our  perceptions  than  is 
actually  there.  It  forces  on  us  the  discrimination 
between  judgments  that  represent  a  correct  adjust- 
ment between  external  influences  and  internal  activ- 
ities and  judgments  that  distort  or  add  to  the  data 


150    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

of  sense-perception.  What  the  criterion  is  that  en- 
ables us  to  correct  illusions  need  not  be  discussed  at 
length.  This  was  indicated  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
where  it  was  stated  to  be  the  correction  of  one  sense 
by  the  perception  of  another,  or  the  measurement  of 
the  present  impression  against  the  totality  of  one's 
normal  and  repeated  experience. 

The  most  important  point,  however,  is  the  dis- 
tinction between  organic  and  functional  illusions. 
This  is  important  because  so  much  is  made  out  of 
the  phenomena  of  illusion  generally  in  the  problems 
of  psychical  research.  In  the  study  of  residual  men- 
tal phenomena  the  critic  reminds  us  of  our  liability 
to  illusion,  and  while  this  has  not  only  to  be  admitted 
as  well  as  urged  as  a  caution,  it  is  quite  as  important 
to  know  when  this  objection  actually  applies  to  cer- 
tain allegations.  We  are  of  course  exposed  to  illu- 
sions in  psychic  experiences  as  well  as  in  any  other 
phenomena,  but  it  is  important  to  inquire  always 
what  the  types  of  illusion  are  in  these  experiences, 
and  to  ascertain  these  we  must  know  what  the  phe- 
nomena are  which  are  reputed  to  represent  super- 
normal realities.  But  we  cannnot  reproach  them 
with  illusion  unless  we  distinguish  the  type  of  illu- 
sion which  is  chargeable  in  the  case.  Organic  illu- 
sions of  the  type  discussed  will  hardly  enter  into  the 
problem.  They  represent  universal  and  normal  per- 
ception, especially  those  involving  mathematical  and 
diagrammatic  figures.  They  indicate  certain  normal 
functions  misad justed  to  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  occur,  and  are  necessary  illusions,  so  to 
speak,  occurring  in  all  normal  experience,  and  not 


ILLUSIONS  151 

correctible  at  all  In  sensory  phenomena,  but  only  in 
respect  of  the  associations  and  judgments  occur- 
ring at  the  time.  They  are  not  primarily  misinter- 
pretations of  facts,  but  are  exceptional  facts  or  in- 
volve the  operation  of  sensory  functions  other  than 
inference  and  association.  The  phenomena  with 
which  they  are  connected  do  not  pretend  to  be  spo- 
radic and  occurring  to  only  specially  endowed  per- 
sons or  special  conditions  of  all  persons,  but  to  all 
normal  experience.  No  application  of  our  liabiHty 
to  them  can  be  made  to  such  phenomena  as  attract 
the  attention  of  the  psychic  researcher  interested  in 
the  supernormal. 

It  is  somewhat  different  with  functional  illusions, 
though  some  of  them  are  complicated  with  the  or- 
ganic. Functional  illusions,  as  we  have  seen,  are 
primarily  such  as  are  influenced  largely  by  subjec- 
tive agencies  and  represent  the  misinterpretation  or 
distortion  of  sensations  by  such  facts  as  expectancy, 
suggestion,  emotional  states,  and  any  mental  pre- 
occupation which  involves  intensity  of  interest  in  the 
meaning  of  experience.  These  illusions  take  us  at 
least  to  the  border-line  of  all  those  considerations 
which  make  up  scientific  method.  Many  of  them, 
however,  and  especially  such  as  are  closely  related 
to  and  involve  organic  tendencies,  will  have  little 
place  in  the  cautions  necessary  to  observe  in  the  usual 
phenomena  claiming  a  supernormal  interest.  All 
Illusions  affected  by  Indistinctness  of  impression  and 
by  expectancy  will  have  a  pertinence  in  the  problems 
of  psychic  research,  as  understanding  our  liability 
to  them  will  protect  us  against  their  influence  on  our 


t 


162    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

convictions.  But  the  real  and  most  important  errors 
in  this  field  are  due  to  other  sins  than  illusions.  These 
we  shall  discuss  in  their  place.  All  that  I  would 
make  clear  at  present  is  the  fact  that  illusion  as  de- 
fined and  discussed  above  has  a  very  limited  appli- 
cation to  the  problems  of  psychic  research,  though 
it  may  be  related  to  many  of  the  alleged  phenomena 
claiming  a  "  supernatural  "  character.  I  think,  how- 
ever, that  ignorance  in  regard  to  scientific  method 
is  a  more  important  factor  in  these  problems  than 
our  liability  to  illusion. 


CHAPTER    VII 

HALLUCINATIONS 

I  have  distinguished  illusions  as  primarily  rep- 
resenting transient  misrepresentations  of  reality  and 
as  caused  by  some  maladjustment  of  functions  in 
the  sense  affected.  This  means  that  the  sensational 
impression  is  more  or  less  normal  and  is  made  in  the 
sense  affected  by  the  illusion.  Hallucinations  are 
not  always  so  regarded.  Many  of  them  involve  a 
stimulus  in  one  sense  and  an  apparent  perception  by 
another  sense.  All  of  them  represent  a  more  fixed 
and  organic  tendency  to  false  functional  action. 
This  is  so  true  that  we  might  define  an  illusion  as 
a  false  judgment  and  hallucination  as  a  false  fact, 
except  that  we  should  need  to  alter  our  ordinary 
conception  of  both  judgment  and  fact  to  treat  such 
a  definition  as  accurate.  It  suffices,  however,  to  call 
attention  to  a  marked  distinction  between  them.  The 
primary  fault  for  the  error  in  hallucination  is  not 
the  judgment,  but  the  false  or  erroneous  sensory 
action.  But  there  is  one  characteristic  of  hallucina- 
tion which  distinguishes  it  clearly  from  intellectual 
errors,  and  this  is  its  nature  as  sensory  action,  which 
represents  an  apparent  reality  while  the  interpreting 
function  may  remain  perfectly  normal. 

153 


154    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

The  definition  of  hallucination  is  often  paradox- 
ical. Parish,  after  quoting  Edmund  Gurney,  who 
said,  "  Every  psychological  phenomenon  that  takes 
the  character  of  a  sense-perception  is  a  sense-per- 
ception," remarked :  "  A  hallucination  is  then  a 
sense-perception  like  any  other,"  and  adds  the  state- 
ment of  Prof.  James,  "  only  there  happens  to  be 
no  object  there,  that  is  the  whole  difference."  The 
difficulty  of  such  a  definition  is  that  it  cannot  serve 
any  but  a  provisional  purpose.  There  is  certainly  a 
very  striking  resemblance  between  normal  sensa- 
tions and  hallucinations,  but  there  is  also  a  most 
essential  distinction.  Sensation  does  not  stand  for 
any  arbitrary  or  abnormal  phenomenon.  It  does 
not  merely  represent  a  subjective  affection  of  the 
sensorium  abstracted  from  its  appropriate  stimulus 
or  cause.  Abstracting  from  its  cause  it  is,  of  course, 
subjective,  but  in  all  normal  psychology  and  in  most 
scientific  parlance  it  intends  to  obtain  its  accurate 
definition  and  so  distinction  from  false  experiences 
by  its  implication  of  an  external  and  determinate 
stimulus.  An  hallucination  accurately  conceived 
must  also  be  defined  to  distinguish  it  from  normal 
sensations,  whatever  its  resemblances  to  it.  A  sen- 
sation in  ordinary  psychology  and  philosophy  stands 
for  a  subjective  experience  determinately  related  to 
its  appropriate  stimulus,  as  color  to  light,  sound  to 
aural  vibration,  touch  to  hardness,  etc.  The  percep- 
tion or  judgment  associated  with  it  can  be  tested  in 
various  ways,  and  some  other  quality  than  the  one 
perceived  at  first  will  usually  be  discovered.  It  is 
not  so  with  hallucinations.     It  is  true  that  "  only 


I 


HALLUCINATIONS  155 

there  happens  to  be  no  object  there,  that  is  the  whole 
difference,"  but  this  difference  is  very  great,  and 
is  not  to  be  suppressed  by  an  "  only."  The  hallu- 
cination may  be  exactly  like  the  sensation  in  its  sub- 
jection nature,  but  it  is  quite  different  in  its  causal 
relations,  and  that  fact  constitutes  a  difference  of 
considerable  magnitude.  An  important  factor  in 
definition  of  it  is  that  its  cause  or  stimulus  is  usually 
not  determinately  related  to  its  occurrence,  as  is  a 
normal  sensation.  The  usual  stimulus  is  what  may 
be  called  a  secondary  stimidits,  which  means  that  it 
is  not  coordinated  with  a  cause  like  that  of  normal 
sensation. 

An  important  distinction  between  illusion  and  hal- 
lucination is  the  fact  that  the  correction  of  an  illu- 
sion tends  to  make  it  disappear,  while  the  discovery 
that  an  experience  is  an  hallucination  does  not  re- 
move its  occurrence.  This  means  that  judgment  has 
more  to  do  with  illusions  than  hallucinations.  It 
is  quite  natural  that  the  judgment  should  assign 
reality  to  hallucinatory  phenomena,  but  when  the 
judgment  is  found  to  be  wrong  the  fact  does  not 
correct  the  hallucination.  In  illusion  the  correction 
of  the  illusion  is  the  correction  of  the  judgment. 
This  holds  true  more  or  less  in  the  organic  illusions, 
which,  though  they  may  continue  to  occur,  do  not 
deceive  our  minds  as  to  the  apparent  reality.  There 
is  nevertheless  a  resemblance  even  here  between  illu- 
sions of  the  organic  type  and  hallucinations.  The 
latter  tend  to  occur  as  before  their  correction,  but 
are  definitely  related  to  the  sensation  produced  and 
are   closely  allied  to  normal  sense-perception.      But 


156    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

in  general  the  correction  of  an  illusion  modifies  the 
apparent  experience  and  even  removes  its  influence 
on  the  judgment.  The  sense  of  apparent  reality  is 
less  noticeable  than  in  hallucinations,  where  the  phe- 
nomena undergo  no  alteration  as  sensory  appear- 
ances when  we  become  conscious  of  their  hallucinatory 
character. 

I  may  then  define  an  hallucination  as  a  functional 
sensory  reaction  imitative  of  those  sensations  which 
are  correctly  correlated  with  an  external  obj  ect.  This 
is  a  broad  definition  to  include  all  types  of  the  phe- 
nomena, and  designs  to  represent  both  its  purely 
subjective  character  and  its  semblance  to  normal 
sensation.  The  most  important  characteristic,  how- 
ever, is  what  is  called  its  subjective  nature.  At  one 
time  this  conception  of  it  assumed  that  it  was  a 
spontaneous  production  of  the  mind,  but  later  inves- 
tigation has  shown  that  hallucinations  have  stimuli 
or  causes  as  do  normal  sensations,  but  they  do  not 
have  the  same  normal  cause.  They  represent  abnor- 
mal and  non-correlated  experiences  in  relation  to 
stimuli.  This  is  to  say  that  the  reality  which  gives 
rise  to  them  may  not  in  any  sense  be  as  like  the 
cause  of  normal  sensation  as  the  object  of  sense- 
perception  is  supposed  to  be  like  what  it  appears 
to  be.  In  normal  sense-perception  we  have  a  definite 
and  intelligible  relation  between  object  and  percep- 
tion, whether  the  sensation  be  regarded  as  repre- 
sentative or  not.  But  in  hallucination  the  experience 
is  not  representative  of  the  cause,  even  when  the  sen- 
sation is  supposed  in  normal  perception  to  be  rep- 
resentative.    The  relation  between  stimulus  and  hal- 


HALLUCINATIONS  157 

lucination  is  an  abnormal  one,  or  the  hallucination 
cannot  be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  supposed  external 
object  or  cause. 

Before  illustrating  hallucinations  their  divisions 
should  be  indicated.  The  psychic  researcher  has 
divided  them  into  veridical  and  subjective  or  fal- 
sidicaL  Veridical  hallucinations  are  supposed  to 
point  to  some  such  external  cause  as  is  apparently 
indicated  in  the  experience,  and  so  connects  the  phe- 
nomenon more  or  less  with  agencies  like  normal  sen- 
sory stimuli  at  least  in  influence.  Subjective  or  fal- 
sidical  hallucinations  are  supposed  not  to  indicate 
their  cause  in  any  definite  manner,  but  to  be  as  "  un- 
real "  as  dreams  and  the  products  of  the  imagination. 
For  certain  purposes  this  division  is  very  useful, 
but  I  think  it  should  be  subordinated  to  a  more 
fundamental  classification  based  upon  the  principles 
that  distinguish  between  external  and  internal  stimuli 
or  causes. 

I  therefore  think  it  better  to  divide  hallucinations 
into  those  extra-organic  ally  initiated  and  those  intra- 
organically  initiated,  or  briefly,  extra-organic  and 
intra-organic  hallucinations.  By  this  distinction  I 
mean  that  some  hallucinations  are  caused  by  stimuli 
occurring  within  the  physical  organism  and  some  by 
stimuli  occurring  without  this  organism.  We  may 
further  subdivide  these,  if  we  find  occasion  to  do  so. 
Of  the  externally  or  extra-organically  initiated  hal- 
lucinations we  may  distinguish  the  veridical  and  the 
falsidical,  if  there  be  reason  to  suppose  any  of  them 
veridical.  Whether  or  not  the  division  may  suit 
reality   it  indicates   an  alleged   class   of  phenomena 


168   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

claiming  scientific  attention  and  supposed  to  lie  be- 
tween purely  subjective  hallucinations  and  normal 
sense-perception,  at  least  in  respect  of  their  meaning. 
Intra-organic  or  internally  initiated  hallucinations 
will  be  subdivided  according  to  their  causes,  all  of 
them  being  falsidical,  that  is,  non-indicative  of  the 
reality  represented.  They  are  all  due  to  abnormal 
conditions,  and  possibly  no  clear  line  of  classification 
can  be  made  regarding  different  types  of  them.  Per- 
haps one  distinction  may  be  useful,  namely,  that  which 
distinguishes  between  hallucinations  correlated  with 
what  we  may  call  primary  stimuli  as  opposed  to  those 
correlated  with  secoivdary  stimuli.  Some  hallucina- 
tions arise  in  the  sense  affected  by  the  stimulus  and 
others  arise  in  a  sense  not  affected  by  the  stimulus. 
Thus  the  stimulus  may  be  in  the  ear  and  the  halluci- 
nation may  be  a  visual  phenomenon.  This  secondary 
stimulus  may  be  either  peripheral  or  central,  that  is, 
it  may  be  either  in  some  part  of  the  bodily  tissue  or 
in  some  part  of  the  nervous  system.  In  addition  to 
this  it  may  be  either  organic  or  functional,  that  is, 
it  may  be  some  physical  pressure  or  lesion,  or  it  may 
be  functional  disturbance  of  some  kind.  There  is 
no  way  to  determine  this  except  in  the  individual  case. 
The  utmost  that  we  can  do  in  classifying  the  instances 
is  to  indicate  these  various  possible  sources  of  stim- 
uli giving  rise  to  hallucinations.  The  general  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  that  stimuli  of  this  kind  produce 
them  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  protect  us  against 
the  interpretation  of  such  phenomena  as  representing 
the  realities  which  they  appear  to  indicate.  The 
point  to  make  clear  is  that  subjective  hallucinations 


HALLUCINATIONS  159 

are  abnormal  phenomena,  and  that  we  require  some 
criterion  for  distinguishing  between  those  which  have 
an  internal  origin  and  those  which  are  initiated  from 
without. 

The  primary  point  in  the  cause  of  hallucinations 
is  their  relation  to  stimulus  and  to  normal  percep- 
tions. In  normal  experience  we  find  a  certain  con- 
stant relation  between  stimulus  and  perception  sup- 
posedly representative  of  the  object  causing  the  per- 
ception. Light  affecting  the  retina  elicits  color, 
vibrations  affecting  the  ear  produce  sound,  physical 
objects  affecting  touch  evoke  the  sense  of  resistance, 
and  similarly  with  the  other  senses  the  object  per- 
ceived is  supposed  to  affect  the  sensorium  which  does 
the  perceiving.  It  is  quite  different  with  hallucina- 
tions generally,  and  in  fact  it  is  this  difference  that 
serves  as  a  fundamental  criterion  for  determining 
when  the  experience  is  hallucinatory.  The  stimulus 
in  such  phenomena  is  not  normally  correlated  with 
the  sense  apparently  affected,  but  comes  from  some 
other  part  of  the  sensorium.  Hence  it  is  called  a 
secondary  stimulus.  For  example,  a  disturbance  may 
occur  in  the  auditory  functions  and  the  person  may 
not  hear  sounds,  but  may  see  visible  objects  of  some 
kind.  An  unusual  stimulus  may  occur  in  the  stom- 
ach, and  we  may  have  a  nightmare.  A  headache 
may  give  rise  to  apparitions.  In  all  these  imaginary 
cases  the  relation  between  stimulus  and  sensation  or 
apparent  object  is  not  like  the  normal  order,  and 
hence  the  stimulus  is  called  secondary  to  indicate 
that,  in  respect  of  stimulus  per  se^  the  phenomenon 
resembles  sensory  experience,  but  in  respect  of  the 


160    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

thing  apparently  perceived  it  is  wholly  different  from 
the  normal.  With  this  explanation  of  the  general 
cause  of  hallucinations  we  may  proceed  to  some  illus- 
trations. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  hallucinations  on  rec- 
ord is  that  of  Dr.  Nicolai,  of  Berlin,  who  was  able 
to  record  his  experience  and  to  observe  it  as  carefully 
as  he  could  observe  facts  in  his  other  scientific  work. 
I  give  it  as  quoted  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  Berlin. 

"  During  the  latter  six  months  of  the  year  1790, 
I  had  endured  griefs  that  most  deeply  affected  me. 
Dr.  Selle,  who  was  accustomed  to  bleed  me  twice  a 
year,  had  deemed  it  advisable  to  do  so  but  once.  On 
the  24th  of  February,  1791,  after  a  sharp  alterca- 
tion, I  suddenly  perceived,  at  the  distance  of  ten 
paces,  a  dead  body,  and  inquired  of  my  wife  if  she 
•did  not  see  it.  My  question  alarmed  her  much,  and 
she  hastened  to  send  for  a  doctor.  The  apparition 
lasted  eight  minutes.  At  four  in  the  afternoon,  the 
same  vision  reappeared.  I  was  then  alone.  Much 
disturbed  by  it,  I  went  to  my  wife's  apartments. 
The  vision  followed  me.  When  the  first  alarm  sub- 
sided, I  watched  the  phantoms,  taking  them  for  what 
they  really  were,  —  the  results  of  indisposition.  Full 
of  this  idea,  I  carefully  examined  them,  endeavoring 
to  trace  by  what  association  of  ideas  these  forms 
were  presented  by  my  imagination.  I  could  not,  how- 
ever, connect  them  with  my  occupations,  my  thoughts, 
my  works.  On  the  following  day  the  figure  of  the 
corpse  disappeared,  but  was  replaced  by  a  great  many 
other   figures,    representing   sometimes    friends,   but 


{ 


HALLUCINATIONS  161 

more  generally  strangers.  None  of  my  Intimate 
friends  were  among  these  apparitions,  which  were 
almost  exclusively  composed  of  individuals  inhabit- 
ing places  more  or  less  distant.  I  attempted  to  pro- 
duce at  will  persons  of  my  acquaintance,  by  an  intense 
objectivity  of  their  persons;  but,  although  I  could 
see  two  or  three  of  them  distinctly  in  my  mind,  I 
could  not  succeed  in  making  exterior  the  interior 
perception,  although  I  had  before  seen  them  afresh 
when  not  thinking  of  them.  The  disposition  of  my 
mind  prevented  me  from  confounding  these  false  ap- 
pearances with  reality." 

After  some  treatment,  according  to  the  methods 
of  the  time,  the  apparitions  disappeared.  Their 
interest  for  us,  however,  is  in  the  fact  that  the  man 
who  had  them  was  physically  well  and  healthy  in  so 
far  as  all  indications  went,  and  was  a  scientific  ob- 
server of  his  experiences.  Similar  phenomena  are 
often  observed  by  physicians,  but  they  take  no  ac- 
count of  them  for  the  psychologist. 

Dr.  Boris  Sidis  mentioned  an  interesting  case  to 
me  that  represents  very  clearly  the  influence  of  deter- 
minate secondary  stimuli.  He  had  a  case  which  rep- 
resented apparitions  of  deceased  persons.  He  ex- 
amined the  eyes  and  the  retinas,  only  to  find  them 
perfectly  sound.  He  then  examined  the  ears  and 
found  them  inflamed.  He  then  resorted  to  an  in- 
crease of  the  stimulus  in  hearing  and  found  that  he 
had  increased  the  number  of  "  spirits "  visible. 
When  he  decreased  this  stimulus,  the  number  of 
"  spirits "  correspondingly  decreased,  showing  in 
each  case  that  the  visions  were  due  to  the  influence 


162    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

of  disturbance  in  the  auditory  centres,  and  that  this 
influence  made  itself  apparent  in  phenomena  asso- 
ciated with  the  healthy  part  of  the  neural  organism. 
The  apparitions  were  not  only  not  real,  but  they 
were  not  even  instigated  by  any  stimulus  on  the 
sensorium  apparently  affected. 

The  same  author  narrates  an  instance  of  nose- 
bleed which  resulted  in  causing  everything  in  the  field 
of  vision  to  appear  red.  This  sensation  of  red  was 
also  excited  by  a  pain  in  the  head.  On  another  occa- 
sion the  same  subject  had  sensations  of  red  and  of 
pain  in  connection  with  a  dream  of  suicide. 

Dreams  and  deliria  also  illustrate  hallucinations  in 
a  clear  form.  The  specific  causes  are  not  alway  de- 
terminable, but  the  result  is  the  same  as  in  persistent 
hallucination.  Only  one  peculiarity  separates  dreams 
from  persistent  hallucinations.  It  is  the  fact  that 
they  are  only  transient  as  the  state  of  sleep.  Deliria 
represent  abnormal  conditions,  physical  or  mental, 
but  may  accompany  only  a  transient  illness.  But  in 
both  the  mental  machinery  involved  is  the  same  as 
in  ordinary  hallucinations. 

As  an  illustration  of  dream  hallucination,  take 
the  case  of  the  man  who  dreamed  that  he  was  walk- 
ing on  ice  in  the  Arctic  regions,  and  awakened  to 
find  that  his  feet  were  exposed  outside  the  bed- 
clothes. Here  was  a  secondary  stimulus  with  dis- 
tinct tactual  sensations  of  cold  and  perhaps  visual 
appearances. 

I  have  two  dreams  in  my  own  experience  which 
illustrate  the  fact  very  clearly,  and  this  because  I 
awakened  while  dreaming,  and  the  images  of  what 


HALLUCINATIONS  163 

I  was  dreaming  about  still  lingered  as  hypnogogic 
illusions,  apparent  sensory  realities,  for  some  time. 
In  the  first  I  saw  a  mountain  lake  with  cottages  on 
its  shores,  and  I  was  standing  on  an  elevation  look- 
ing down  on  the  scene.  This  vision,  after  waking, 
lasted  for,  perhaps,  ten  seconds  or  more.  It  disap- 
peared suddenly  after  I  noticed  crevices  breaking 
in  the  rocks  on  which  I  was  standing.  In  the  second 
I  was  in  my  old  room  at  my  home  in  Ohio,  and  no- 
ticed the  walls  with  a  paper  on  them  that  was  never 
on  the  actual  wall  in  my  experience.  This  appari- 
tion vanished  and  I  discovered  that  I  was  in  my  bed 
in  New  York.  I  was  wide  awake  when  this  occurred, 
having  awakened  in  the  dream,  and  continued  see- 
ing the  walls  in  a  puzzled  condition,  as  I  did  not 
know  where  I  was  until  the  apparition  vanished. 

In  both  these  cases  I  was  able  to  note  that  I  was 
apparently  looking  at  real  objects,  the  normal  con- 
sciousness and  its  observation  confirming  what  we 
infer  from  the  vividness  of  our  dream  visions,  namely, 
the  sensory  action  of  the  mind  as  in  reality.  This 
explains  why  we  take  the  visions  as  real,  as  the  same 
feeling  accompanies  ordinary  hallucinations.  The 
same  is  true  in  deliria  which  occur  on  the  border- 
line between  normal  consciousness  and  conditions  in 
which  the  deliria  are  not  remembered.  I  remember 
one  of  these  cases  in  an  attack  of  intermittent  fever, 
when  I  saw  the  wall  of  the  room  cracking  and  threat- 
ening to  fall.  I  was  told  what  the  other  facts  in  the 
delirium  had  been.  This  one  I  remembered  at  the 
time  and  called  attention  to  it.  It  was  distinctly 
real  to  me.    The  vision  had  all  the  qualities,  external 


164    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

appearance,  of  reality  except  the  tactual  confirma- 
tion. 

Hallucinations  can  also  be  produced  by  hypnotic 
suggestion.  The  peculiarity  of  this  fact  is  that  they 
occur  with  perfectly  healthy  subjects.  It  is  perhaps 
admitted  by  all  experimenters  who  understand  psy- 
chology that  hallucination  is  the  normal  form  of 
suggested  matters.  The  manner  of  the  subject  indi- 
cates this,  and  his  whole  conduct  toward  what  is 
suggested.  The  best  evidence,  however,  of  sensory 
effects  like  hallucinations  will  be  found  in  those  states 
in  which  the  subject  remembers  what  he  had  been 
told  that  he  will  see,  hear,  or  feel.  I  remember  one 
instance  in  which  the  hypnotic  subject  remembered 
what  the  suggestions  were  after  he  came  out  of 
hypnosis.  The  operator  (not  professional)  sug- 
gested on  one  occasion  that  he  saw  certain  wild  ani- 
mals, such  as  the  lion,  tiger,  elephant,  etc.,  and  the 
suggestion  was  accompanied  by  remarks  calculated 
to  awaken  fear  of  the  animals.  This  was  manifested. 
After  he  was  awakened  another  request  was  made 
to  try  hypnosis  a  second  time.  He  refused,  saying 
that  he  did  not  want  to  go  where  he  could  see  those 
wild  animals,  and  on  being  asked  to  describe  what 
he  saw,  he  did  so  in  just  such  terms  as  a  normally 
conscious  person  would  describe  real  objects  of  the 
kind.  There  are  no  doubt  other  similar  cases  on 
record,  and  I  wish  here  only  to  give  a  clear  illus- 
tration of  the  effect  of  hypnosis  and  suggestion  in 
eliciting  hallucinatory  images  and  arousing  exactly 
the  same  mental  and  other  machinery  that  is  active 
in  morbid  hallucinations. 


HALLUCINATIONS  165 

An  interesting  phenomenon  in  connection  with  hyp- 
notic suggestion  is  what  the  psychologist  calls  Tiegor 
tive  hallucinations.  Such  as  I  have  described  are 
called  positive  hallucinations,  and  mean  that  an  ob- 
ject which  does  not  really  exist  can  be  made  to  appear 
to  exist.  But  in  a  negative  hallucination  an  object 
which  does  actually  exist  before  sense-perception  can 
be  made  to  disappear  at  suggestion.  I  may  be  look- 
ing at  a  tree,  and  if  told  that  I  cannot  see  it  I  will 
not  see  it,  and  as  long  as  the  suggestion  operates  I 
cannot  be  made  to  see  it.  This  experiment  has  been 
performed  myriads  of  times,  and  is  the  complemen- 
tary phenomenon  of  positive  hallucination. 

These  illustrate  sufficiently  the  different  types  of 
hallucination,  and  we  have  now  to  look  at  two  aspects 
of  them  as  mental  phenomena.  The  first  is  their 
causes  and  the  second  is  their  meamng  for  the  psy- 
chologist. Their  causes  have  been  briefly  indicated 
in  their  classification  and  in  the  distinction  between 
sensations  produced  by  primary  stimuli  and  hallu- 
cinations produced  by  both  primary  and  secondary 
stimuli.  But  nothing  has  been  indicated  regarding 
their  meaning  for  psychology  and  its  larger  concep- 
tions of  mental  phenomena  and  their  implications. 

In  general  the  primary  cause  of  hallucinations  is 
some  morbid  condition  of  the  organism.  This  holds 
good  even  when  the  stimulus  is  external  and  normally 
related  to  the  sense  affected.  Normal  experience  rep- 
resents stimuli  and  sense-reaction  properly  connected, 
as  in  touch,  sight,  hearing,  smell,  etc.  The  cause 
of  the  sensation  is  definitely  correlated  with  its  effect, 
and  that  relation  is  so  constant  and  regular  that 


166    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

we  can  easily  ascertain  why  and  how  any  particular 
mental  experience  occurs.  But  if  any  morbid  condi- 
tion of  the  organism  occurs,  the  stimuli,  internal  or 
external,  are  distorted,  and  the  effect  is  not  represent- 
ative of  the  cause.  That  is,  we  cannot  use  the  nor- 
mal standards  for  estimating  or  determining  what 
the  cause  of  the  experience  is.  In  hallucinations  we 
cannot  infer  from  the  sensation  of  color  that  it  is 
caused  by  light  on  the  retina.  We  cannot  infer  from 
odors  that  the  cause  is  the  ordinary  stimulus  of  the 
olfactory  nerve.  We  have  to  seek  the  cause  else- 
where. Most  frequently  it  is  in  the  organism,  and 
is  some  abnormal  condition  either  of  the  peripheral 
or  of  the  central  system,  whether  organic  or  func- 
tional in  either  case.  For  example,  pressure  on  a 
nerve  by  inflammation  or  organic  growth  may  give 
rise  to  hallucinations.  An  ulcer  in  the  brain  may 
do  the  same.  Any  stimulus  due  to  disease  may  pro- 
duce them  in  abundance.  Most  frequently  perhaps 
they  are  found  in  general  disturbances,  so  general 
that  they  could  not  be  made  intelligible  without  the 
quotation  of  long  cases  and  examples.  But  speak- 
ing of  all  "  fallacious  perception,"  including  illu- 
sions and  hallucinations,  but  more  particularly  the 
latter,  and  of  both  external  and  internal  stimuli. 
Parish  summarizes  the  whole  matter  in  the  following 
statements : 

"  The  dependence  of  hallucinations  on  external 
stimuli  is  well  illustrated  in  the  following  often- 
quoted  communication  from  a  patient: 

"  '  Every  tree  which  I  approach,  even  in  windless 
weather,  seems  to  whisper  and  utter  words  and  sen- 


HALLUCINATIONS  167 

tences.  The  carts  and  carriages  rattle  and  sound 
in  a  mysterious  way  and  creak  out  anecdotes.  The 
swine  grunt  names  and  stories,  and  exclaim  in  sur- 
prise. The  voices  of  the  dogs,  cocks,  and  hens  seem 
to  scold  and  reproach  me,  and  even  the  geese  cackle 
quotations.' 

"  To  this  class  belong  also  hallucinations  occur- 
ring in  clouding  of  the  cornea  or  lens.  Perhaps  the 
case  quoted  by  Griesinger  of  the  man  who  always 
saw  a  black  goat  at  his  side  may  be  taken  as  an  ex- 
ample. In  the  same  way  eyelashes,  tears,  and  such 
like  may  furnish  the  material  for  hallucinations. 
This  is  specially  likely  to  occur,  as  has  often  been 
insisted,  if  there  is  any  want  of  distinctness  in  the 
original  impression.  Myopia  and  other  defects  of 
vision  which  cause  the  sense-impression  to  be  indis- 
tinct also  predispose  to  fallacious  perception.  Zan- 
der reports  that  among  100  mental  cases  he  had 
eight  color-blind  patients  who  all  suffered  from  vis- 
ual delusions.  Leubuscher's  account  of  the  patient 
who  mistook  himself  for  his  mistress  seems  to  point 
to  the  same  explanation,  for  if  he  saw  himself  in  a 
mirror  he  knew  his  face  to  be  his  own,  but  if  he  only 
saw  his  reflection  dimly  in  the  window-pane,  he  took 
it  for  the  image  of  his  lady. 

"The  stimulus,  however,  need  not  be  an  objective 
sensory  impression;  it  may  consist  in  pathological 
or  physiological  irritation  of  the  sensory  centres. 
In  the  normal  state  both  processes,  as  we  see,  are 
recognized  as  so-called  sensations;  but  if  dissocia- 
tion obtains,  they  may  become  causes  of  false  per- 
ception. 


168    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

"  The  physiological  sensory  irritation  may  depend 
on  changes  such  as  metabolic  processes  in  the  centres 
themselves,  and  in  the  nerve-tracts  leading  to  them. 
The  pathological  irritation  may  depend  on  morbid 
processes,  such  as  meningitis,  which  radiate  from 
neighboring  parts  of  the  brain;  at  least,  cases  of 
sensory  delusion  in  which  external  impressions  fail 
to  be  perceived,  either  owing  to  peripheral  disturb- 
ance or  because  the  ascending  current  is  broken  off 
at  some  intermediate  point,  are  most  easily  explained 
by  supposing  an  irradiation  proceeding  from  the 
morbid  part.  Or,  secondly,  the  pathological  irri- 
tation may  act  from  some  given  point  in  the  course 
of  the  sensory  path  concerned;  for  instance,  in  a 
partly  atrophied  nerve  the  seat  of  excitation  would 
be  the  point  of  transition  from  the  morbid  to  the 
sound  parts.  Such  cases  might  plausibly  be  ex- 
plained by  adopting  H.  E.  Richter's  view  of  hallu- 
cination as  an  instance  of  anomalous  functioning 
of  the  sensorial  nervous  system  analogous  to  anaes- 
thesia dolorosa,  in  which,  though  the  peripheral  stim- 
ulus cannot  reach  the  central  organ,  owing  to  the  irri- 
tation of  the  sensory  nerve  at  some  intermediate 
point,  the  brain  nevertheless  receives  impressions  from 
the  seat  of  the  irritation." 

The  whole  system  of  influences  instigating  hallu- 
cinations is  indicated  in  this  passage,  and  may  be 
summarized  in  the  irradiation  of  stimuli  from  the 
natural  centre  of  their  influence.  We  should  nat- 
urally suppose  that  a  lesion  or  organic  disturbance 
in  the  auditory  centres  would  aff^ect  the  machinery 
of  hearing,  and  so  it  does.     But  it  does  not  always 


HALLUCINATIONS  169 

cause  hallucinations  of  hearing.  It  may  affect  vision, 
as  we  have  seen,  and  this  fact  is  explicable  by  the 
irradiation  of  the  influences  associated  with  the  dis- 
turbance to  associated  centres  of  action.  In  most 
cases  this  influence  is  intra-organic,  and  associated 
with  insanity  or  abnormal  conditions,  physiological 
or  psychological.  The  hallucination  will  not  neces- 
sarily be  a  symptom  of  insanity,  but  only  of  some 
disturbance  in  the  nervous  system  or  its  functions. 
That  disturbance  may  be  very  slight,  and  it  will  be 
symptomatic  of  serious  conditions  only  when  it  ex- 
tends its  agency  over  the  mental  life,  or  persists  in 
a  manner  to  show  that  it  is  due  to  more  fixed  in- 
fluences than  those  which  produce  illusions,  dreams, 
deliria,  or  hypnotic  hallucinations. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  go  into  any  details  regard- 
ing the  causes  of  hallucinations,  nor  to  discuss  any 
theory  of  them  in  general.  That  is  the  work  of  the 
student  of  psychiatry  or  abnormal  psychology.  It 
will  sufiice  here  to  recognize  the  fact  that  they  have 
some  abnormal  cause  in  the  organism  in  most  in- 
stances, and  then  to  examine  the  meaning  of  such  a 
fact  for  the  student  of  psychology  and  the  general 
public  which  indulges  theories  of  apparently  super- 
normal phenomena  without  any  clear  knowledge  of 
the  difficulties  attending  their  speculations.  The 
classification  of  hallucinations  implied  the  diff^erent 
types  of  causes,  and  I  may  return  to  this  as  a  means 
of  separating  the  various  problems  confronting  the 
student  of  abnormal  and  supernormal  psychology. 

The  reader  will  remember  that  I  divided  hallucina- 
tions into  those  that  are  intra-organically   initiated 


170    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

and  those  that  may  be  extra-organically  initiated. 
The  intra-organic  may  have  peripheral  or  central 
stimuli.  The  peripheral  stimuli  will  represent  either 
the  primary  or  secondary  influences.  The  primary 
stimuli  will  be  some  affection  of  the  organism  which 
perceives  the  apparent  object.  The  secondary  stim- 
uli will  be  some  affection  whose  influence  irradiates  to 
some  other  sensory  centre  than  the  one  we  should 
most  naturally  expect  to  be  concerned.  Central  stim- 
uli may  be  similarly  divided.  The  primary  will  be 
an  affection  of  the  central  function  concerned,  and 
the  secondary  will  be  influence  irradiated  from  one 
centre  to  another,  and  both  will  represent  psychical 
function  of  some  kind  as  distinct  from  the  bodily 
affection  of  peripheral  stimuli.  In  all  of  them,  how- 
ever, both  peripheral  and  central,  the  hallucination 
or  sensory  product  will  not  involve  a  representative 
percept  as  in  normal  experience,  but  will  be  a  sub- 
jective result  of  the  mind's  own  making.  In  other 
words,  the  hallucination  will  be  falsidical,  which  is 
to  say,  that  it  does  not  represent  the  cause  of  itself 
in  terms  by  which  our  normal  action  and  behavior  are 
directed.  The  phenomena  are  no  better  than  the 
products  of  imagination,  in  so  far  as  reality  is  con- 
cerned. 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  divide  extra-organic  hallucina- 
tions, as  we  are  not  so  sure  that  we  can  assume  dif- 
ferent stimuli  corresponding  to  their  types.  Neither 
can  we  assume  without  evidence  that  the  stimuli, 
when  we  suppose  a  distinction  in  kind  between  the 
hallucinations,  can  be  divided  as  are  those  of  intra- 
organic cases.    We  may,  however,  distinguish  the  hal- 


HALLUCINATIONS  171 

lucinations  provisionally  into  what  are  known  aa 
apparitions  or  ghosts,  and  those  of  an  irregular 
character  which  are  related  to  external  physical 
stimuli.  Of  course,  many  of  the  class  of  appari- 
tions belong  either  to  illusions  suggested  by  external 
stimuli  or  to  hallucinations  of  disease  intra-organi- 
cally  initiated.  But  I  am  here  referring  to  that  class 
of  apparitions  which  psychic  researchers  regard  as 
veridical,  and  which  do  not  show  the  ordinary  charac- 
ter of  illusion  or  of  hallucinations  physically  initiated. 
Many  psychic  researchers  would  remonstrate  that 
they  are  not  hallucinations  of  any  kind,  but  represen- 
tative realities,  and  I  shall  not  unqualifiedly  deny  that 
contention.  I  can  only  postpone  for  the  moment  the 
consideration  of  their  nature,  while  I  accept  the  ac- 
tual conception  which  the  student  of  abnormal  psy- 
chology has  of  them  without  investigating  them 
carefully.  I  call  them  hallucinations  in  deference 
to  that  point  of  view  for  the  sake  of  ascertaining 
their  causes  before  pronouncing  on  their  possibly 
real  character.  When  this  is  effected  we  may  find 
that  we  can  also  apply  here  the  distinction  between 
peripheral  and  central  stimuli.  But  as  this  involves 
speculative  considerations,  which  are  as  yet  wholly 
undetermined  and  which  may  never  be  true,  I  think 
it  best  to  distinguish  them  provisionally  from  those 
hallucinations  determined  by  ordinary  external  stim- 
uli, and  so  recognize  a  possible  type  determined  by 
some  extraordinary  stimulus.  I  may  therefore  di- 
vide extra-organic  hallucinations  into  those  which 
are  sensibly  or  physically  initiated  and  those 
which  are  supersensibly  or  superphysically  initiated. 


17S    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Whether  the  last  class  really  exists  is  not  now  the 
question,  as  I  am  concerned  partly  with  a  question 
of  definition  and  partly  with  an  alleged  claim  whose 
integrity  has  to  be  examined. 

The  last  remark  and  the  fact  that  hallucinations 
sensibly  or  physically  initiated  are  like  the  intra- 
organic type,  namely,  f alsidical,  suggest  that  it  might 
be  well  to  classify  them  from  their  characteristics 
rather  than  their  causes,  and  then  study  them  for 
their  causes.  A  special  reason  for  this  view  of  the 
case  is  the  fact  that  there  is  no  essential  difference 
between  hallucinations  determined  sensibly  by  exter- 
nal or  extra-organic  stimuli  and  hallucinations  deter- 
mined by  intra-organic  stimuli,  especially  of  the 
peripheral  type.  They  are  both  falsidical,  which 
is  to  say  that  they  are  not  representative  of  their 
causes  as  are  normal  sensations,  at  least  as  these  are 
supposed  to  be  in  our  common  conceptions.  With  the 
distinction,  therefore,  between  veridical  and  falsid- 
ical types,  we  may  discuss  the  question  whether  there 
is  adequate  reason  for  the  distinction,  and  whether 
the  veridical  type  can  have  any  such  cause  as  is 
claimed  for  them.  It  is  agreed  that  ordinary  hallu- 
cinations are  not  representative  of  their  stimuli,  and 
in  fact  this  conception  is  the  reason  for  calling  them 
hallucinations,  and  only  since  the  psychic  researcher 
came  to  recognize  a  possibly  transcendental  meaning 
for  apparitions  have  we  heard  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween veridical  and  falsidical  hallucinations,  meaning 
thereby  that  possibly  one  type  stands  for  the  reality 
of  discarnate  spirits.  The  opposing  view  maintains 
that  they  are  all  equally  subjective  creations.     They 


HALLUCINATIONS  173 

have  their  causes,  but  these  causes  are  not  what  they 
are  taken  to  be  by  the  subject  of  them. 

The  issue  between  the  two  schools  of  thought  is 
clearly  defined.  The  psychiatrist  or  student  of  ab- 
normal psychology  classifies  appai:itions  with  subjec- 
tive hallucinations,  and  in  fact  is  content  with  calling 
them  hallucinations  without  qualifying  them  as  sub- 
jective, as  he  regards  all  such  experiences  as  subjec- 
tive without  distinction.  His  most  radical  opponent 
insists  that  apparitions  occurring  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances are  not  subjective  phenomena,  but  repre- 
sentative of  the  reality  of  that  which  they  appear  to 
be.  In  other  words,  he  thinks  apparitions  of  a  certain 
type  and  occurring  under  given  circumstances  are 
really  discarnate  spirits,  and  hence  he  refuses  them 
the  character  of  hallucinations  of  any  kind.  This  is 
at  least  the  naive  view  of  such  experiences. 

There  are  three  types  of  apparitions  which  give 
rise  to  the  distinction  between  veridical  and  falsidical. 
They  are  apparitions  of  the  living,  apparitions  of 
the  dying,  and  apparitions  of  the  dead.  Some  of  these 
are  certainly  explicable  by  ordinary  causes  and  are 
to  be  treated  as  subjective  or  falsidical.  But  those 
which  occur  coincidentally  with  events  at  a  dis- 
tance and  are  not  known  by  the  subject  of  the  ex- 
perience, if  they  occur  in  sufficient  numbers  to  com- 
pel the  view  that  they  are  not  due  to  chance,  suggest 
some  unusual  cause.  In  the  collections  of  the  Pharir- 
tasms  of  the  Living  and  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  the  numbers  seem 
great  enough  to  exclude  the  application  of  chance 
coincidence,  whatever  the  final  explanation  of  them. 


174    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

and  this  fact  has  induced  the  final  explanation  of 
them  as  veridical,  which  means  at  least  that  they  are 
in  some  way  related  to  a  definite  and  representative 
cause.  But  if  so,  why  call  them  hallucinations  of  any 
kind?  One  school. calls  them  this  because  it  wishes  to 
have  them  regarded  as  subjective  and  unreal,  the 
other  wishes  to  regard  them  as  representative  of  real- 

The  position  which  I  wish  to  take  in  the  case  is 
one  that  is  intermediate  between  the  two  schools. 
Whether  this  was  meant  by  those  who  originally  dis- 
tinguished between  veridical  and  f alsidical  hallucina- 
tions I  have  no  means  of  deciding  clearly.  I  imagine 
that  it  was,  as  there  would  have  been  no  good  reason 
for  describing  them  as  hallucinations  while  regard- 
ing them  as  veridical,  unless  it  was  meant  to  mediate 
between  two  points  of  view.  But  whether  the  posi- 
tion which  I  wish  to  take  in  this  discussion  has  been 
anticipated  by  others  or  not,  it  is  one  in  which  I  wish 
to  maintain  the  possibility  that  apparitions  may  be 
hallucinations  in  their  representative  character  and 
yet  correlated  with  just  such  a  cause  as  they  most 
naturally  suggest.  This  is  to  concede  one  point  to 
abnormal  psychology  and  to  deny  it  another  in  its 
views  of  the  phenomena. 

I  shall  not  here  undertake  to  prove  that  veridical 
apparitions  are  either  supernormal  facts  or  indicative 
of  the  causes  which  they  at  least  superficially  suggest. 
That  would  require  a  large  collection  of  facts  and  a 
discussion  as  lengthy  as  the  labors  which  I  have 
quoted  above.  I  shall  merely  try  to  show  from  what 
we  know  of  normal  and  abnormal  psychology  and 


HALLUCINATIONS  175 

from  the  phenomena  of  ordinary  and  subjective  hal- 
lucinations that  this  is  possible,  and  hence  we  may 
leave  to  the  future  the  collection  of  the  evidence  to 
prove  it  a  fact.  I  shall  therefore  begin  first  with 
the  general  meaning  of  hallucinations  and  proceed 
from  this  to  an  examination  of  their  causes. 

The  first  general  meaning  of  hallucinations  is  the 
fact  that  they  attest  the  subjective  activity  of  the 
organism  or  of  the  mind  in  the  production  of  appar- 
ent reality.  We  found  that  even  in  normal  sense- 
perception  we  had  to  admit  or  suppose  that  the  organ- 
ism or  mind  was  a  factor  in  its  perceptions.  Color, 
sound,  odor,  temperature,  etc.,  were  not  representa- 
tive of  the  stimuli  even  in  normal  sensations.  The 
mind's  reactions  partook  of  the  nature  of  its  own 
action,  as  any  physical  object  will  react  against 
impact  according  to  its  own  inner  structure  and  does 
not  represent  the  merely  transmitted  energy  of  the 
object  affecting  it.  A  bell  was  the  illustration  of 
this  law.  The  bell  produces  a  sound  according  to 
its  own  nature  rather  than  according  to  the  sole  na- 
ture of  its  cause  or  impact  upon  it.  This  being  the 
law  of  physical  phenomena,  we  must  not  be  surprised 
at  its  occurrence  in  organic  beings.  So  it  is  clearly 
illustrated  in  sensation  and  mental  reactions,  which 
are  not  supposed  to  represent  the  nature  of  external 
causes,  or  to  be  constituted  by  them.  Hallucinations 
are  particular  proof  of  this  view,  and  they  serve  as 
this  evidence  with  special  force  because  the  argu- 
ment holds  good  on  the  supposition  that  normal  sense- 
perception  is  representative.  No  matter  how  firmly 
"  common  sense  "  may  adhere  to  the  conviction  that 


176    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

objects  in  the  external  world  are  exactly  as  they 
appear,  it  cannot  maintain  for  a  moment  that  the 
apparent  objects  in  hallucinations  are  correspond- 
ent or  representative  of  the  apparent  reality.  It  is 
precisely  because  we  discover  that  they  do  not  rep- 
resent what  we  experience  in  normal  perception  that 
we  distinguish  them  as  hallucinations  and  imply  that 
the  cause  of  them  is  not  there  as  in  normal  sensa- 
tions. Similar  phenomena  occur  even  in  normal  ex- 
perience, such  as  phosphenes  when  pressure  is  ex- 
erted on  the  eyeballs,  or  "  seeing  stars  "  when  a  blow 
on  the  head  occurs.  In  hallucination  of  all  types  as 
recognized  by  psychiatry  this  disparity  between  stim- 
ulus and  reaction  or  sensory  product  is  the  marked 
feature  of  the  phenomena,  and  we  feel  compelled  to 
regard  the  effect  as  a  subjective  product,  whatever 
its  cause.  We  do  not  dream  of  assigning  it  objec- 
tive reality,  at  least  in  any  such  form  or  matter  as 
we  ascribe  to  normal  stimuli. 

The  consequence  is  that  we  reinforce  the  doctrine 
that  the  mind  is  a  primary  factor  in  the  nature  of 
its  experiences.  Whatever  doubt  about  such  a  view 
may  be  maintained  in  normal  experience,  we  can  have 
no  doubt  about  its  capacity  in  the  abnormal  to  repro- 
duce a  simulation  of  reality  in  its  hallucinations,  and 
the  same  conclusion  is  sustained  by  dreams  and  de- 
liria.  When  we  find  that  normal  experience  also  has 
its  subjective  aspect  the  result  seems  still  more  con- 
clusive, and  the  subjective  nature  of  mental  products, 
even  with  any  theory  of  their  causes,  seems  so  well 
secured  that  no  question  of  it  as  a  fact  can  be  raised. 
We  find  a  point  at  which  the  phenomena  of  hallu- 


HALLUCINATIONS  177 

cinations  and  normal  experience  unite,  and  this  is 
the  subjective  action  of  the  mind  in  the  production 
of  its  phenomena.  The  only  difference  between  the 
normal  and  the  hallucinatory  facts  is  their  different 
relation  to  stimulus.  Neither  are  supposed  to  rep- 
resent reality,  but  only  to  indicate  it,  the  one  show- 
ing a  definite  and  regular  relation  to  certain  stimuli 
and  the  other  an  apparently  accidental  and  irregular 
one.  But  in  the  actual  appearance  of  the  reality  as 
presented  to  consciousness  there  is  no  constitutive  or 
internal  difference.  Consequently  with  the  assump- 
tion that  even  in  all  normal  experience  the  sensations 
are  subjective  facts  and  not  representative  of  the 
cause,  we  have  this  idea  more  emphatically  indicated 
in  hallucinations,  and  it  enables  us  to  say  that  the 
fact  apparent  in  the  hallucination  is  not  real.  Hence 
the  implication  in  our  ability  to  say  that  apparitions 
are  hallucinations  is  that  they  do  not  stand  for  any 
such  reality  as  normal  experience  would  indicate. 

The  defendant  of  the  "  reality  "  of  apparitions  or 
of  the  external  facts  which  they  are  supposed  to  in- 
dicate will  have  to  admit  the  cogency  of  this  conten- 
tion. Hallucinations,  whatever  their  causes,  are  such 
subjective  phenomena  that  the  classification  of  any 
fact  with  them  must  carry  with  it  the  implication  that 
no  such  reality  is  indicated  as  is  superficially  appar- 
ent, and  this  suffices  to  exorcise  "  spirits  "  in  the  case, 
if  we  are  obliged  to  use  as  our  criterion  of  reality 
the  standards  of  normal  experience,  as  reflected  in 
the  ideas  of  "  common  sense  "  or  representative  per- 
ception. 

But  without  disputing  this  general  view  of  the  case, 


178   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

there  are   certain  important  facts  which  even  psy- 
chiatry will  have  to  admit,  and  which  may  indicate 
that  its   standard   of  judgment  in   such  matters   is 
precisely  the  representative  one  which  its  own  doc- 
trine of  hallucinations  claims  to  reject.     If  it  con- 
cludes that  hallucinations  do  not  represent  reality, 
it  does  so  on  the  ground  that  normal  experience  does 
this  in  some  sense.     But  with  the  fact  that  normal 
experience  is  quite  as  subjective  as  the  abnormal  and 
is  yet  indicative  of  external  reality  in  its  own  as- 
sumptions, the  student  may  return  to  the  principle 
of  normal  experience  and   ask  if  that  may  not  be 
applicable  also  to  the  abnormal,  especially  as  there  is 
similarity  of  kind  in  the  two  types  of  phenomena  and 
as  the  admission  must  be  made  that  hallucinations 
have  stimuli  external  to  the  centres  of  reaction.    This 
is  simply  to  say  that  we  cannot  assume  the  naive 
standards  of  normal  sense-perception  as  valid  rep- 
resentatively for  determining  the  subjective  nature 
of  hallucinations,  and  then  turn  around  to  admit  the 
subjective  nature  of  sense-phenomena  while  we  admit 
them  to  be  indicative  of  a  non-representative  cause, 
without   having  to   face  the  possibility   that   hallu- 
cinations may  be  indicative  of  external  causes  when 
they  are  not  representative  of  them.    We  may  simply 
press  the  fact  that  in  normal  experience  the  deter- 
mination of  reality  is  not  effected  by  any  representa- 
tive relation  between  stimulus  and  sensation,  but  by 
the  uniformity  of  certain  causal  relations  which  are 
supposed  to  involve  externality  without  indicating  its 
nature.     With  that  in  view  we  may  be  able  to  recon- 
struct the  meaning  of  hallucinations. 


HALLUCINATIONS  179 

The  older  meaning  of  hallucinations  was  that  they 
were  wholly  subjective  affairs,  and  they  were  even 
regarded  as  spontaneous  productions  of  the  mind,  as 
opposed  to  externally  produced  normal  sensations. 
This  naive  view  has  been  greatly  changed,  and  they 
are  now  regarded  as  subject  to  the  law  of  causation 
in  much  the  same  way  as  normal  experience.  Before 
applying  this  to  apparitions  it  will  be  well  to  examine 
the  general  explanation  of  hallucinations  which  re- 
lates them  as  closely  to  normal  sensations  as  their 
other  characteristics  distinguishes  them  from  these. 
If  apparitions  are  to  be  classified  with  hallucinations 
generally,  and  especially  of  the  purely  subjective 
type,  we  must  expect  them  to  accord  with  the  same 
laws  of  causality.  On  the  other  hand,  if  hallucina- 
tions show  certain  definite  relations  to  external  causes, 
we  may  have  reason  to  press  this  resemblance  to 
normal  experience  as  a  significant  fact  in  support  of 
a  view  not  at  first  suggested  by  them.  I  shall  there- 
fore summarize  the  principles  and  implications  in- 
volved in  subjective  hallucinations  as  a  qualification 
of  that  import  which  psychiatry  has  so  long  assigned 
them.  I  shall  then  take  up  the  special  case  of  appa- 
ritions and  see  how  the  doctrine  may  apply  to 
them. 

1.  In  the  views  of  abnormal  psychology  the  uni- 
versal doctrine  seems  to  be  that  hallucinations  are, 
in  some  sense  of  the  term,  "  externally  "  initiated  or 
caused.  The  externality  may  be  nothing  more  than 
foreign  to  the  nervous  centre  reacting  to  produce 
them.  But  they  are  no  longer  held  to  be  spontaneous 
phenomena.     They  are  related  to  causes  precisely  as 


180    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

normal  experience  is  related,  with  the  exception  that 
the  relation  is  not  a  normal  one.  Of  course  this 
"  external "  or  extra-organic  initiation  is  more  ap- 
parent in  the  case  of  hallucinations  instigated  by 
peripheral  and  external  stimuli,  and  the  hallucination 
is  due  to  abnormal  conditions  of  the  sensorium  af- 
fected. The  relation  to  normal  experience  is  here 
fairly  close.  But  the  "  external "  initiation  is  no 
less  true  of  the  purely  subjective  hallucinations.  This 
is  unquestionable  in  the  case  of  peripheral  instances 
due  to  lesions  or  morbid  conditions  in  the  bodily  tis- 
sue. The  psychiatrist  also  believes,  and  in  many 
instances  he  has  the  proof,  that  hallucinations  cen- 
trally instigated,  or  produced  by  morbid  psychical 
functions,  are  no  less  subject  to  causation  that  is 
"  external "  in  the  widest  sense.  The  consequence 
is  that,  while  we  admit  in  hallucinations  a  difference 
in  relation  to  reality  as  supposed  by  normal  experi- 
ence and  a  representative  theory  of  perception,  we 
assume  that  the  same  law  of  causality  applies  to 
them  as  to  normal  experience,  namely,  that  they  have 
an  "  external "  cause,  even  though  that  "  external- 
ity "  be  nothing  more  than  foreign  to  the  centres 
concerned.  Some  of  them,  as  we  have  seen,  have  a 
true  external  cause,  and  all  of  them  differ  from  nor- 
mal sensations  only  in  a  correlation  with  that  cause 
which  is  at  least  less  representative  of  its  nature  than 
in  normal  experience.  We  conceive  a  certain  rela- 
tion between  a  blow  on  the  head  and  the  tactual  sen- 
sation, but  when  it  results  in  "  seeing  stars,"  we 
do  not  conceive  that  the  relation  between  the  "  stars  " 
and  their  cause  is  the  same  intimate  or  supposedly 


HALLUCINATIONS  181 

representative  one  that  we  conceive  in  the  sensation 
responding  to  the  blow.  This  is  the  whole  difference 
between  normal  sensations  and  hallucinations.  The 
external  cause  is  there,  but  it  is  not  so  related  to  the 
effect  that  we  can  perceive  it  in  the  same  way  that 
it  is  perceived  in  normal  instances. 

2.  In  normal  experience  the  determination  of 
causes  of  sensation  is  dependent  on  the  directness  or 
immediacy  of  the  connection  between  certain  facts 
and  the  uniformity  of  that  connection  in  different 
individuals.  It  is  not  in  the  likeness  of  the  object 
perceived  to  the  sensation  produced.  That  sensations 
are  representative  of  the  object  is  not  assumed  for 
a  moment.  The  antithesis,  if  we  may  so  speak,  be- 
tween sensation  and  cause  may  be  as  great  as  between 
hallucinations  and  their  causes.  The  primary  ques- 
tion is  the  uniformity  of  the  coexistence  and  sequence 
in  certain  facts  and  their  universality  or  multiplica- 
tion in  human  experience  generally.  The  cause  in 
such  cases  means  the  fact  which  we  have  experienced 
as  the  antecedent  or  associate  of  the  effect  or  event 
to  be  accounted  for,  and  what  we  can  expect  to  find 
when  its  presence  is  conjectured.  In  hallucinations 
this  normal  experience  has  not  taught  us  to  expect 
any  particular  cause  either  for  the  individual  or  for 
the  race.  If  we  could  get  any  such  uniformity  of 
connection  between  hallucinations  and  their  particu- 
lar causes,  we  might  form  a  different  conception  both 
of  them  and  their  associated  facts.  But  it  is  the 
capricious  and  ununiform  relations  that  prevent  us 
in  most  cases  from  attaching  the  same  kind  of  mean- 
ing to  their  occurrence  that  we  assign  to  the  con- 


183    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

nections  of  normal  sensations.  But  if  we  did  find 
a  certain  fixed  connection  between  subjective  experi- 
ences and  certain  definite  external  events,  we  should 
be  justified  in  supposing  something  like  the  causes 
which  we  assume  in  normal  phenomena.  But  this 
uniformity  would  have  to  extend  to  like  relations  in 
different  individuals,  in  order  to  exclude  purely  sub- 
jective influences. 

3.  In  some  cases  we  do  find  a  certain  uniformity 
between  the  hallucination  and  its  cause.  Often  in 
fainting  fits  the  subject  sees  a  certain  apparition; 
it  may  be  a  light,  a  human  form,  or  any  arbitrary 
object  whatever.  A  similar  phenomenon  is  often 
noticeable  with  epileptics.  Others,  at  times  of  physi- 
cal exhaustion,  see  certain  types  of  apparitions.  But 
two  facts  are  noticeable  in  these  phenomena.  First, 
the  apparent  object  is  not  such  as  can  be  tested  by 
the  other  senses.  Secondly,  the  same  apparition  is 
not  perceptible  by  others  under  like  morbid  condi- 
tions. It  is  these  facts  which  force  on  us  the  view 
that  the  phenomena  are  subjective  productions.  The 
cases  are  intra-organic,  whether  the  stimulus  be  ex- 
ternal or  internal.  Hence,  though  we  find  certain 
uniformities  of  coexistence  and  sequence  in  halluci- 
nations supposed,  they  are  not  of  the  character  to 
justify  the  assumption  of  a  foreign  reality  of  any 
particular  type.  The  utmost  that  could  be  conjec- 
tured was  that  something  foreign  had  affected  the 
organism.  We  should  have  to  discover  certain  uni- 
formities of  extra-organic  stimuli  and  subjective  ex- 
periences in  which  some  identity  of  meaning  could 
be   observed   before   we   could   ascribe   an   objective 


HALLUCINATIONS  183 

meaning  resembling  normal  experience  to  the  sub- 
jective phenomena.  When  the  hallucination  is  due 
to  intra-organic  stimuli  there  can  be  no  assumption 
of  external  realities  either  like  or  unlike  the  apparent 
object  of  perception.  We  must  have  hallucinations 
related  to  extra-organic  stimuli,  and  so  related  that 
their  uniformity  with  the  individual  or  a  multiple 
of  individuals  will  justify  the  conjecture  in  favor 
of  a  special  type  of  cause  or  stimulus. 

4.  Now  apparitions  of  the  veridical  type  seem 
to  conform  to  this  very  condition  of  external  causal- 
ity inferrible  from  the  circumstances.  Those  appa- 
ritions not  correlated  with  any  special  event  external 
to  the  organism  in  which  they  occur  are  of  course  in- 
tra-organic and  subjective.  But  what  we  call  veridi- 
cal apparitions  are  so  related  to  an  objective  and  ex- 
ternal event,  namely,  purely  extra-organic  causes, 
that  they  seem  to  conform  to  the  standards  by  which 
we  determine  external  reality  in  normal  experience. 
It  is  not  the  fact  that  the  apparitions  represent 
human  forms,  living  or  dead,  that  makes  them  inter- 
esting, but  the  fact  that  they  coincide  with  certain 
events  not  known  to  the  percipient  of  them.  This 
circumstance  cannot  be  forgotten.  It  is  the  crucial 
ciicumstance  in  the  whole  question.  Of  course  if 
such  phenomena  occurred  in  such  a  way  to  suggest 
chance  coincidence  the  matter  might  be  quite  dif- 
ferent. But  their  grouping  about  an  event  occur- 
ring at  the  time  and  outside  the  knowledge  of  the  sub- 
ject of  them  is  the  important  fact  to  be  accounted 
for,  and  not  the  form  in  which  the  experience  takes. 
Hence  it  is  not  the  fact  of  an  apparition  that  creates 


184    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

curiosity,  but  its  coincidence  with  the  event  which 
the  apparition  seems  to  indicate.  It  is  this  coinci- 
dence that  requires  explanation.  That  coincidence 
is  found  in  most  cases  to  be  with  some  friend's 
thoughts  or  experimental  effort  to  produce  an  appa- 
rition of  himself,  or  with  a  serious  illness,  or  very 
frequently  with  the  fact  of  death  or  dying.  If  such 
phenomena,  measured  against  similar  occurrences 
which  do  not  indicate  coincidence  of  any  kind,  were 
explicable  by  chance,  we  should  not  feel  any  tempta- 
tion to  treat  them  more  seriously.  But  if  reports 
of  them  be  true,  comparatively  few  occur  in  which 
a  coincidence  of  some  kind  cannot  be  detected,  and 
it  seems  that  the  coincidental  instances  are  so  fre- 
quent, related  as  they  are  to  certain  critical  condi- 
tions in  the  life  or  thoughts  of  the  perceived  person, 
that  chance  does  not  appear  to  be  their  proper  ex- 
planation. There  is  often,  or  perhaps  usually,  just 
enough  indication  in  the  experience  or  apparition  to 
point  definitely  to  the  person  or  events  concerned, 
and  the  causal  relation  seems  as  well  substantiated  as 
any  instance  of  such  causal  relation  traceable  to 
intra-organic  stimuli  when  the  hallucination  is  sup- 
posedly subjective.  With  the  proof  that  chance  co- 
incidence does  not  explain  the  occurrence  of  the  appa- 
rition and  that  the  events  which  must  be  assumed  to 
be  the  causal  agent  are  not  intra-organic,  we  are 
placed  in  a  situation  where  we  must  choose  between 
considering  apparitions  an  exceptional  type  of  hal- 
lucination, if  hallucinations  they  be,  and  their  reality 
after  the  conception  of  the  naive  mind. 

I  shall  not  here  attempt  to  give  the  evidence  that 


HALLUCINATIONS  185 

there  are  such  apparitions  involving  an  external 
cause,  as  so  often  claimed,  because  I  am  concerned 
only  with  its  possibility  until  more  evidence  can  be 
collected.  But  it  may  be  worth  mentioning  that  the 
records  already  made  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  show  such  formidable  suggestions  of  such 
an  explanation  that  the  matter  will  have  to  be  con- 
sidered from  that  point  of  view.  The  investigators 
did  emphatically  assert  that  the  calculation  proved 
they  were  not  due  to  chance.  They  did  not  attempt 
to  offer  a  positive  explanation,  telepathic  or  other- 
wise, leaving  this  matter  to  the  individual  student. 
If  not  due  to  chance  and  if  due  to  external  causes, 
whether  the  thoughts  of  living  or  deceased  persons, 
they  point  to  causes  which  have  to  be  treated  quite 
differently  from  the  usual  causes  recognized  in  psy- 
chiatry. The  only  question  that  will  remain  is 
whether  we  shall  still  speak  and  think  of  apparitions 
as  hallucinations,  even  when  qualified  as  veridical. 

5.  If  apparitions  are  instigated  by  the  causes 
which  they  apparently  indicate,  the  stimulus  is  cer- 
tainly a  very  delicate  one,  and  represents  an  unusual 
process.  There  are  two  things  to  establish  in  this 
question.  The  first  is  that  delicate  stimuli  can  pro- 
duce hallucinations,  and  second  that  apparitions  may 
be  regarded  as  hallucinatory  without  making  them 
purely  subjective  in  their  causation  or  meaning.  The 
same  facts  will  bear  upon  the  solution  of  both  prob- 
lems. 

That  very  delicate  stimuli  will  result  in  halluci- 
nations is  a  part  of  the  fundamental  conceptions  of 
psychiatry.     In  normal  sense-perception  the  stimuli 


186    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

seem  to  be  coarser,  so  to  speak,  than  those  which 
excite  similar  products  subjectively  in  the  phenomena 
of  hallucinations.  Irradiation  in  secondary  stimuli 
represents  very  delicate  agencies.  They  are  not 
effective  in  ordinary  conditions,  and  often  represent 
influences  on  the  organism  that  lie  below  the  thresh- 
old of  consciousness ;  that  is,  that  are  not  intense 
enough  to  produce  an  effect  on  the  normal  sensorium. 
Still  better  illustrations  of  this  dehcacy  is  the  fact 
that  the  state  of  mind  will  give  rise  to  illusions  and 
hallucinations.  I  have  already  called  attention  to  the 
circumstance  that  mental  preoccupation  will  distort 
a  sensory  impression  so  as  to  change  its  appearance. 
The  illustration  of  reading  words  wrongly  is  an  in- 
stance. The  state  of  the  mind  produces  an  appar- 
ent reality  which  is  not  represented  by  the  stimulus 
at  all.  In  the  more  morbid  forms  of  mental  influence 
this  is  still  more  striking.  The  mind  may  be  so  in- 
tensely occupied  as  to  wholly  ignore  its  sensations 
and  apparently  see  objects  that  represent  nothing 
but  its  thoughts  and  expectations.  It  is  very  com- 
mon among  the  insane,  and  can  be  produced,  as  indi\ 
cated  above,  by  hypnotic  suggestion.  In  such  in- 
stances mere  thoughts  give  rise  to  apparent  realities. 
This  is  probably  the  case  in  dreams.  This  means  that 
mere  mental  states  can  produce  on  the  sensorium  the 
effect  of  actual  sensory  stimuli.  With  this  once 
granted,  it  is  only  a  question  of  evidence  whether 
similar  extra-organic  stimuli  might  not  produce  the 
same  result.  Such  illustrations  as  I  have  given  are 
of  the  intra-organic  type,  and  we  should  only  have 
to  obtain  evidence  of  telepathy  to  extend  the  same 


HALLUCINATIONS  187 

possibilities  to  the  extra-organic  stimuli  having  the 
character  of  mental  states. 

Before  taking  up  this  question  of  extra-organic 
mental  stimuli,  I  must  call  attention  to  another  type 
of  mental  influence  on  hallucinations.  I  refer  to  the 
transmission  of  causal  influence  from  subconscious 
states  to  the  normal  consciousness.  This  may  be 
illustrated  in  the  phenomena  of  crystal  visions,  where 
latent  memories  are  evoked  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
appear  as  sensory  realities.  But  the  most  important 
type  of  these  mental  stimuli  eliciting  hallucination 
and  involving  transmission  of  influence  from  subcon- 
scious to  conscious  action  is  illustrated  in  cases  of 
secondary  personality,  where  the  subliminal  action 
seems  to  deliberately  influence  the  normal  conscious- 
ness to  see  realities  when  they  are  not  actually  pres*- 
ent.  The  best  instance  of  this  is  the  case  related 
by  Dr.  Morton  Prince. 

This  case  to  which  I  refer  is  a  remarkable  one  of 
multiple  personality.  I  cannot  here  undertake  to 
explain  it  fully  for  the  lay  reader.  The  chapter 
on  secondary  personality  will  explain  it  sufficiently. 
All  that  we  need  to  know  at  present  is  that  our  minds 
are  capable  of  subconscious  action  not  known  or 
remembered  by  our  normal  stream  of  consciousness, 
and  so  may  simulate  the  action  of  an  independent 
person.  Many  think  that  this  subconscious  action 
is  another  person,  but  there  is  no  excuse  in  this  day 
for  this  belief,  natural  as  it  may  be  for  those  who 
measure  their  own  personality  by  that  of  which  they 
are  conscious.  The  one  thing  that  distinguishes  the 
two  or  more  personalities  in  all  of  us  is  the  fact 


188    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

that  the  memory  connection  between  these  diiferent 
streams  or  groups  of  mental  states  is  severed.  One 
set  of  ideas  is  dissociated  from  others,  and  the  nor- 
mally conscious  states  are  especially  dissociated  from 
the  subconscious  ones.  They  may  interact  and  pro- 
duce effects  on  each  other,  but  not  of  the  kind  in- 
volving any  memory  of  the  fact,  or  any  conscious- 
ness of  it,  or  conscious  voluntary  relation  to  the 
effect.  With  this  preliminary  account  of  what  we 
mean  by  secondary  or  multiple  personality,  we  are 
prepared  to  understand  the  following  facts  in  the 
remarkable  case  of  Dr.  Prince. 

It  was  one  of  several  personalities,  but  my  pur- 
poses here  require  me  to  take  account  of  only  two 
of  them.  One  of  them,  which  I  may  call  A,  was  a 
mischievous,  impish  little  witch,  if  I  may  so  describe 
her,  full  of  tricks  and  jokes  which  she  would  play 
on  another  personality,  which  I  shall  call  B.  The 
interesting  point  here,  however,  is  that  A  was  able 
to  induce  hallucinations  in  B.  For  certain  purposes 
A,  who  did  not  like  the  other  personality,  would 
induce  all  sorts  of  hallucinations  in  B,  such  as  spi- 
ders, toads,  sensations  of  cold,  absence  of  limbs,  etc. 
This  means  that  the  subconscious  personality  was 
able  to  produce  in  the  surface  consciousness  the  ap- 
pearance of  physical  objects,  and  so  illustrates  in  a 
peculiar  form  the  fact  that  mere  mental  states  can 
give  rise  to  hallucinatory  phenomena;  a  fact,  of 
course,  sufficiently  well  known  in  insanity,  but  not 
so  clearly  shown  there  as  in  the  intelligent  and  delib- 
erate efforts  of  A  to  influence  B  in  the  case  before 
us.     This  A  would  describe  afterward  in  automatic 


HALLUCINATIONS  189 

writing  what  she  had  done  and  why  she  had  done  it. 
The  story  must  be  read  to  be  appreciated,  and  I 
can  only  emphasize  here  the  fact  that  one  state  of 
consciousness  not  introspectively  known  to  another 
could  induce  an  hallucination  which  was  cognizable 
by  the  other.  The  fact  illustrates  an  indirect  mode 
of  communication  between  two  streams  or  groups  of 
mental  states,  and  the  capacity  of  producing  appar- 
ently real  effects  or  objects  there. 

All  these  illustrations  of  delicate  causes  of  hallu- 
cination are  intra-organic.  It  remains  to  show  that 
similar  extra-organic  stimuli  can  produce  like  effects. 
With  the  phenomena  of  hyperaesthesia  we  ought  not 
to  think  it  impossible.  Moreover,  with  such  experi- 
ments as  Lehman  and  Hansen  performed,  in  which 
unconscious  "  whispering "  or  involuntary  sounds 
produced  by  merely  thinking  of  objects  had  the 
effect  of  sensations  on  a  percipient,  in  which  there 
was  no  consciousness  of  the  stimuli,  we  may  well  im- 
agine what  may  be  possible  in  hyperesthesia.  There 
is  no  hard  and  fast  line  between  what  may  be  pro- 
duced by  intra-organic  stimuli  of  a  delicate  character 
and  extra-organic  stimuli  of  a  like  nature.  Let  us 
see  whether  there  is  any  evidence  of  such  phe- 
nomena. 

6.  The  phenomena  of  telepathy  exhibits  the  in- 
fluence of  delicate  extra-organic  stimuli.  I  cannot 
here  undertake  to  show  that  what  is  called  telepathy 
is  a  fact,  but  must  refer  readers  to  the  data  in  the 
Troceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
for  this  conclusion.  I  can  only  indicate  what  I  mean 
by  the  term.     To  me  it  denotes  nothing  more  than 


190    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

a  coincidence  between  two  persons'  thoughts  which 
requires  a  causal  explanation.  By  this  I  mean,  of 
course,  that  the  phenomena  educed  in  its  support 
are  not  explicable  by  chance  coincidence,  but  show 
some  causal  nexus  which  has  yet  to  be  determined  in 
its  mode  of  action.  Whatever  that  mode  of  action, 
the  phenomena  exhibit  the  supernormal  influence  of 
one  mind  upon  another  in  a  manner  not  explicable 
by  the  ordinary  agencies  of  sense.  In  some  way  the 
thoughts  of  one  person  make  themselves  known  to 
the  mind  of  another.  The  fact  is  very  rare,  and 
is  much  more  rare  than  the  general  public  supposes. 
But  it  occurs  often  enough  for  us  to  suppose  that 
extra-organic  stimuli  of  the  nature  of  mental  states 
can  produce  effects  on  the  minds  of  others.  The  only 
question  that  remains  is,  whether  these  effects  ever 
take  the  form  of  hallucinations. 

There  has  not  been  as  careful  observation  in  most 
of  the  experiments  illustrating  telepathy  as  there 
should  have  been  for  the  mental  states  of  the  per- 
cipient. Apparently  in  most  instances  the  thoughts 
of  the  agent  were  obtained  by  the  percipient  with- 
out any  hallucinatory  tendencies,  as  no  report  on 
this  matter  was  made.  But  in  certain  cases  where  the 
imagination  and  memory  of  the  percipient  were  par- 
ticipants in  the  results,  which  still  contained  enough 
identity  with  the  thought  or  drawing  of  the  agent  to 
prove  coincidence,  there  is  trace  of  hallucinatory 
influences.  In  one  set  of  experiments  which  I  myself 
performed  there  were  very  clear  evidences  of  hallu- 
cinatory effects.  The  subject  described  what  he  saw, 
saying  that  he  saw  many  geometrical  figures  floating 


HALLUCINATIONS  191 

before  his  vision  and  that  he  picked  out  the  most 
vivid  instances.  These  turned  out  in  each  case  to 
be  the  correct  ones.  In  a  spontaneous  instance  a 
man  was  smoking  a  cigarette  and  suddenly  saw  a 
phantasm  of  his  brother's  face  with  the  hand  on  the 
side  of  his  head,  the  skull  having  been  crushed  in. 
In  a  moment  the  door-bell  rang,  and  a  reporter  said 
that  the  percipient's  brother  had  had  his  skull  frac- 
tured on  the  side  of  the  head.  Inquiry  at  once  over 
the  telephone  at  the  newspaper  office  confirmed  the 
facts,  but  it  was  said  that  he  was  not  so  badly  hurt 
as  at  first  supposed.  Knowing  where  the  brother 
was  to  be  at  that  hour,  inquiry  was  made  over  the 
telephone  at  this  place,  and  the  brother  responded 
to  say  that  he  was  well  and  having  a  good  time,  no 
accident  of  the  kind  having  occurred.  It  was  a  case 
of  mistaken  identity  in  the  newspaper  office.  The 
important  point  is  that  the  percipient  had  an  appari- 
tion of  his  brother,  though  the  reporter's  mind  prob- 
ably did  not  have  a  visual  picture  of  the  brother 
before  it.  The  thought  of  the  reporter  appeared 
as  a  physical  object,  and  as  a  remembered  object 
in  the  experience  of  the  percipient.  That  the  phe- 
nomenon was  hallucinatory  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
though  it  was  veridical  and  not  merely  subjective. 
The  incident,  of  course,  is  not  evidence  of  telepathy 
as  we  should  like  to  have  it,  but  that  phenomenon 
once  proved,  we  can  readily  accept  this  instance,  which 
came  to  me  from  a  perfectly  reliable  source,  as  illus- 
tration of  the  claims  in  question.  Another  instance 
which  I  have  on  record  shows  hallucinatory  effects 
of  telepathy  at  great  distances.     The  percipient  saw 


192    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

apparitions  of  the  agent's  thoughts,  that  is,  appari- 
tions of  the  objects  he  was  thinking  about, 

But  if  experimental  phenomena  are  scarce,  there 
is  a  type  which  the  believer  in  their  telepathic  ex- 
planation will  have  to  accept  as  supporting  the  doc- 
trine which  I  am  indicating.  Coincidental  dreams 
and  apparitions  of  the  living,  if  they  are  explained 
by  telepathy,  will  have  to  be  regarded  as  telepath- 
ically  initiated  hallucinations.  The  number  of  such 
phenomena  is  very  great  and  it  would  require  sev- 
eral volumes  simply  to  quote  them.  I  can  only  refer 
the  reader  to  Phantasms  of  the  Living  (2  Vols.) 
and  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  for  innumerable  instances.  They  repre- 
sent definite  visual  and  auditory  phantasms  in  con- 
nection with  the  actual  or  supposable  thoughts  of 
others  at  a  distance,  and  if  explicable  by  telepathy 
must  be  regarded  as  hallucinations  thus  instigated. 
In  any  case,  they  represent  extra-organic  stimuli  of 
a  delicate  type,  and  most  probably,  in  many  cases 
most  certainly,  coincidental  with  the  thoughts  of 
definite  persons  so  indicated  in  the  experience. 

7.  If  thoughts  of  the  living  can  produce  hallu- 
cinations at  a  distance,  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  sup- 
position that  the  dead,  if  they  actually  survive  death, 
can  produce  similar  effects.  Of  course  we  have  first 
to  produce  evidence  that  they  do  survive  before  we 
can  explain  any  individual  instance  of  apparition  of 
the  deceased  by  such  capacities.  But  it  will  be  only 
a  matter  of  the  frequency  of  them,  of  the  conditions 
under  which  they  occur,  and  of  the  supernormal  in- 
formation communicated  by  them,  to  prove  that  per- 


HALLUCINATIONS  193 

sonal  consciousness  does  survive,  and  the  evidence  for 
this  may  carry  with  it  the  indications  of  the  phe- 
nomena which  I  am  discussing.  There  are  on  record 
a  sufficient  number  of  apparitions  of  the  dead  to 
suggest,  if  they  do  not  prove,  that  they  have  an 
explanation  similar  to  the  apparitions  of  the  living ; 
namely,  as  telepathically  induced  by  the  person  in- 
volved in  the  apparition.  Of  course  if  we  do  not 
accept  the  explanation  that  coincidental  dreams  and 
apparitions  of  the  living  are  telepathic,  we  should 
hardly  refer  the  apparitions  of  the  dead  to  the  same 
type  of  cause,  though  we  should  probably  have 
to  accept  an  explanation  which  involved  the  survival 
of  personality  after  death,  whatever  else  we  had  to 
assume  to  explain  the  differences  in  the  whole  class. 
But  assume  that  telepathy  is  involved  in  coincidental 
dreams  and  apparitions  of  the  living,  and  the  theory 
that  hallucination  is  the  effect  by  which  the  identity 
of  the  person  or  event  is  manifested  becomes  a  fore- 
gone conclusion,  and  the  most  natural  interpreta- 
tion which  would  follow  for  apparitions  of  the  dead 
would  be  that  they  were  telepathically  initiated  hal- 
lucinations instigated  by  the  deceased. 

The  consequence  of  this  is  that  "  spirit  clothes  " 
ought  not  to  give  the  psychologist  any  perplexity. 
He  manifests  no  special  perplexity  at  the  appear- 
ance of  clothes  in  apparitions  of  the  living.  There 
is  difficulty  in  the  apparitions  of  clothes  of  the  living, 
but  neither  is  it  more  than  the  difficulty  of  telepathic 
phantasms  of  any  kind,  nor  is  it  so  great  as  the  com- 
mon mind  must  suppose  in  apparitions  of  the  dead 
taken   for   indicating  the   reality   of  what   appears. 


194    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

The  common  mind  comes  to  these  phenomena  with 
the  representative  theory  of  perception,  and  with 
this  we  cannot  easily  accept  the  realistic  interpreta- 
tion of  apparitions  of  the  dead.  We  cannot  easily 
believe,  if  we  can  at  all  believe,  that  the  dead,  assum- 
ing that  they  exist,  duplicate  the  phenomena  of  the 
physical  world  to  such  an  extent.  But  after  accept- 
ing without  hesitation  the  phenomena  of  clothes  and 
other  physical  accompaniments  in  the  apparitions 
of  the  living,  and  accepting  them  as  telepathic  hallu- 
cinations, there  ought  not  to  be  any  difficulty  in 
explaining  apparitions  of  "  spirit  clothes "  in  the 
same  way.  To  him  who  does  not  accept  the  rep- 
resentative theory  of  sense-perception  the  case  is 
clearly  possible,  and  it  harmonizes  completely  with 
the  whole  doctrine  of  hallucination  which  supposes 
external  causes  of  the  phenomena,  but  does  not  con- 
ceive those  causes  as  representative  in  their  effects. 
They  are  much  less  apparently  so  than  normal 
experience,  but  exhibit  a  complete  antithesis  between 
what  seems  to  be  and  what  is  taken  to  be  the  real 
cause. 

This  view  of  sense-perception  is  clearly  indicated 
in  telepathic  hallucinations.  The  phantasm  cannot 
be  easily  assumed  to  represent  the  thought  of  the 
agent.  The  phantasm  takes  the  form  of  a  sensory 
object,  when  it  is  hallucinatory  at  all  in  telepathic 
coincidence,  while  we  never  conceive  inner  states  of 
consciousness  or  thoughts  as  having  sensory  form. 
The  fact  that  many  of  the  telepathic  messages  do 
not  take  the  sensory  or  hallucinatory  form,  but  are 
mere  thought-impressions  or  unconscious  and  auto- 


HALLUCINATIONS  195 

matic  reproductions  of  what  is  in  the  mind  of  the 
agent,  shows  unmistakably  that  the  form  which  the 
evidence  of  telepathy  takes  is  not  necessary  to  its 
character.  The  distinction  between  the  cause  and 
the  effect  is  then  clear,  and  the  same  general  prin- 
ciples apply  to  the  interpretation  of  such  coinci- 
dences as  we  apply  in  normal  experience.  The  only 
question  which  we  have  to  answer  is  whether  the 
coincidence  between  the  thoughts  of  living  persons 
and  the  apparitions  of  the  living  shows  that  the 
phenomena  are  not  due  to  chance;  and  once  admit 
causality  into  their  explanation,  we  have  extra- 
organic  agencies  of  a  mental  type  to  reckon  with, 
and  there  may  be  no  limit  to  their  influence  in  pro- 
ducing similar  coincidences.  All  that  we  should 
require  would  be  extreme  caution  in  estimating  the 
evidence  or  the  claims  that  such  causes  actually  did 
operate. 

8.  The  conclusion  of  this  discussion  is  that  we 
do  not  require  to  wholly  deny  that  apparitions  of 
the  dead  are  hallucinations.  We  have  found  a  point 
of  view  in  which  we  can  mediate  between  this  ex- 
planation of  them  and  the  claim  that  they  indicate 
an  objective  reahty  occasioning  them.  The  fact  is 
that  the  doctrine  which  explains  them  as  subjective 
hallucinations,  meaning  that  they  do  not  indicate  the 
objective  cause  apparent  in  them,  is  subject  to  two 
difficulties.  The  first  is  that  it  ignores  the  evidence 
that  the  experiences  are  objectively  or  extra-organi- 
cally  initiated.  In  other  words,  it  assumes  chance 
where  it  would  not  do  so  in  the  subjective  experi- 
ences.    The  second  is  that  its  contention  obtains  its 


196    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

force  entirely  from  the  assumption  of  the  represent- 
ative theory  of  sense-perception.  This  theory  sup- 
poses that  in  normal  experience  the  external  object 
is  represented  by  sensation,  that  we  see  it  exactly  as 
its  nature  appears  to  be.  Accepting  this  view  of 
normal  experience,  the  contrast  or  antithesis  between 
it  and  what  is  found  to  be  the  case  in  hallucinations 
serves  as  an  evidence  of  the  subjective  nature  of  the 
latter  and  conceals  the  circumstance  that  hallucina- 
tions have  causes  analogous  with  the  causes  of  normal 
sensations.  Hence  when  we  give  up  the  representa- 
tive theory  of  normal  experience,  we  find  that  the 
relation  between  it  and  hallucinatory  sensations  is 
closer  than  we  at  first  suppose  and  that  the  only  thing 
required  to  establish  an  objective  or  extra-organic 
stimulus  for  hallucinations  is  such  a  uniform  and 
general  coincidence  between  the  hallucination  and  a 
cause  which  we  would  have  to  assume  in  the  normal 
instances  that  we  should  be  forced  to  postulate  the 
external  reality  to  account  for  the  fact.  That  is  to 
say,  if  we  find  a  certain  type  of  subjective  experi- 
ences coincidental  with  extra-organic  events  to  an 
extent  beyond  chance,  we  will  have  to  conclude  to  the 
external  causality,  precisely  as  we  do  in  all  other 
scientific  phenomena.  It  is  a  question  of  the  number 
of  coincidences  between  external  and  internal  events, 
and  when  this  is  supposed  to  be  causal  the  other  mat- 
ter is  determined  as  it  is  in  all  other  instances.  We 
may  call  the  subjective  effect  hallucination  if  we  like, 
but  the  fact  will  not  eliminate  the  principle  of  causal- 
ity from  it  nor  the  special  cause  which  the  facts  sug- 
gest, though  the  phenomena   do  not  represent  the 


HALLUCINATIONS  197 

nature  of  that  cause  any  more  than  they  do  in  sub- 
jective hallucinations.  We  simply  distinguish  the 
cases  as  veridical  to  indicate  that  they  have  a  given 
objective  cause,  such  as  the  facts  justify  us  in  sup- 
posing. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

PSEUDO  -  SPIEITISTIC    PHENOMENA 

I  have  discussed  illusions  and  hallucinations  in 
their  more  technical  meaning  as  understood  in  psy- 
chology and  psychiatry,  and  thus  limited  their  import 
to  sensory  phenomena,  which  they  technically  are. 
But  the  same  terms  have  a  general  meaning  which 
applies  to  all  sorts  of  erroneous  conceptions  and 
judgments,  and  associated  with  them  is  another  term 
which  sometimes  does  service  for  both  of  them.  It 
is  the  term  delusions.  This  also  has  a  technical 
import  and  denotes  functional  disease  of  the  intel- 
lectual activities.  They  are  such  as  mistaken  cases 
of  identity,  for  example,  thinking  one  is  Caesar, 
Christ,  God,  or  other  personality,  "  illusions "  of 
persecution  (paranoia),  religious  ecstasy,  etc.  These 
are  typical  cases  of  insanity,  and  involve  disturbances 
apparently  only  in  non-sensory  centres.  Sensory 
disturbance  may  at  times  also  be  concerned,  but  it 
is  not  essential  to  delusions  that  sensory  affection 
should  be  involved,  though  hallucinations  may  be 
the  sequence  of  delusions  and  conceal  the  real  source 
of  the  trouble.  But  delusions  proper  may  involve 
nothing   but   diseased   functions    of  the   intellectual 

198 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    199 

activities,  and  so  represent  errors  of  judgment  as 
unavoidable  as  are  certain  types  of  hallucinations. 

But  the  term  delusion  has  a  general  meaning 
almost  synonymous  with  illusion  on  the  one  hand, 
and  with  fallacy  on  the  other.  When  we  wish  to  in- 
dicate that  a  person  is  mistaken  in  his  judgment  and 
mistaken  in  a  manner  difficult  to  correct,  we  speak, 
at  least  loosely,  of  his  delusion,  and  at  times  we  as 
freely  use  the  term  illusion  to  describe  similar  errors. 
In  this  chapter  I  wish  to  describe  a  class  of  phenom- 
ena, therefore,  which  involve  errors  that  we  cannot 
always  call  delusions  or  illusions  in  the  technical 
sense  of  those  terms,  and  which  are  seldom  so  pro- 
nounced or  deep-seated  as  diseased  intellectual  func- 
tions, but  which  have  all  the  invalid  nature  of  such 
phenomena.  I  shall,  therefore,  use  the  terms  here 
in  an  untechnical  sense  to  describe  such  sources  of 
erroneous  judgment,  when  it  is  necessary  to  describe 
them  at  all,  while  there  may  be  instances  in  which 
their  technical  import  will  be  involved  also.  But 
I  shall  not  treat  of  delusions  in  their  import  of  in- 
sane conditions  of  mind.  I  have  only  a  type  of 
phenomena  to  deal  with  that  are  not  strictly  sensory 
illusions  or  hallucinations,  and  yet  are  as  fruitful 
a  source  of  error  as  they  can  possibly  be.  They 
are  caused  by  more  than  misadjustment  of  the  vari- 
ous functions  of  the  mind  and  their  relation  to  ex- 
ternal stimuli.  They  involve  imperfect  knowledge  of 
scientific  method. 

The  history  of  Spiritualism  shows  where  the 
trouble  begins  and  what  is  its  cause.  And  I  do  not 
mean    Spiritualism    in    the    modern    narrow    sense, 


wo    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

though  what  I  mean  includes  this.  By  Spiritualism 
I  mean  the  doctrine  that  opposes  Materialism  and 
so  affirms  the  survival  of  the  soul  after  death.  Its 
modern  narrow  meaning,  which  identifies  it  with  a 
certain  mode  of  communication  with  the  dead  and 
cuts  itself  away  from  the  previously  acquired  knowl- 
edge of  science  and  philosophy,  is  not  the  old  and 
respectable  use  of  the  term.  Spiritualism  as  a  phil- 
osophic theory  did  not  necessarily  imply  communi- 
cation with  the  dead,  and  obtained  its  meaning  from 
all  those  facts  and  arguments  which  were  used  to 
refute  the  materialistic  theory  of  human  conscious- 
ness. This  conception  of  it,  however,  was  the  out- 
come of  the  efforts  to  give  Christianity  a  philosophic 
basis.  The  fact  is  that  Christianity  probably  orig- 
inated in  psychic  phenomena.  The  Gospels  are  cer- 
tainly full  of  references  to  events  which  we  should 
to-day  classify  as  psychic,  or  claiming  to  be  psychic 
phenomena  of  importance.  For  example,  the  story 
of  Moses  and  Elias  appearing  to  Christ  on  the 
Mount,  the  apparition  of  St.  Paul,  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost, in  which  people  were  said  to  have  spoken  in 
unknown  tongues,  the  appearance  of  Christ  to  his 
disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus,  Christ  walking  on 
the  water,  when  the  phenomenon  was  taken  for  his 
spirit  or  apparition,  Christ  astonishing  the  woman 
at  the  well  by  telling  her  that  the  man  she  called  her 
husband  was  not  her  husband,  possibly  even  the  story 
of  the  resurrection,  and  many  others.  It  is  not  nec- 
essary to  suppose  these  stories  true  in  order  to  accept 
the  hypothesis  that  Christianity  was  suggested  by 
them.     The  main  point  in  this  matter  is  that  they 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    201 

were  believed.  Hence,  whether  true  or  not,  the  same 
general  type  of  real  or  alleged  phenomena  gave  rise 
to  Christianity  that  are  now  the  subject  of  more 
careful  investigation.  But  they  were  not  examined 
scientifically  in  that  age.  Then,  as  now,  they  were 
the  property  of  the  uneducated  mind,  and  the  phil- 
osophers ignored  them,  and  lost  their  opportunity 
either  to  repudiate  them  intelHgently  or  to  prove 
their  real  basis. 

But  as  time  passed,  the  force  of  the  alleged  facts 
on  which  the  first  impulse  of  Christianity  rested  de- 
creased and  men  had  to  fall  back  upon  a  philosophic 
system  for  the  defence  of  the  doctrine  which  had 
received  such  an  impetus  with  the  belief  in  these 
allegations  of  the  supernormal  or  what  was  long 
called  the  supernatural.  The  philosophic  view 
lasted  as  long  as  civilization  was  aristocratic,  and 
intelligent  men  could  do  the  governing  and  enjoy 
the  education  that  was  to  be  had.  But  Materialism 
and  democracy  came  to  supplant,  one  of  them,  the 
ancient  philosophy,  and  the  other,  the  ancient 
methods  of  government.  The  intellectual  attitude 
which  mediated  between  Spiritualism  and  Material- 
ism was  agnosticism:  the  political  doctrine  which 
mediated  between  imperialism  and  anarchy  was  de- 
mocracy. The  intellectuals  are  cut  out  of  the  latter 
and  are  left  to  philosophic  pursuits,  if  they  have  the 
means,  or  to  pandering  to  the  multitude,  if  they  have 
not  the  economic  resources  on  which  to  depend.  This 
agnosticism,  which  maintained  that  the  existence  of 
God  and  of  immortality  could  not  be  proved,  ob- 
tained its  present  status,  one  of  great  strength,  from 


202    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  philosophy  of  Immanuel  Kant.  He  it  is  that  is 
responsible  for  the  modem  narrow  conception  of 
Spiritualism.  This  is  not  because  he  advocated  such 
a  view  as  that  term  now  stands  for  among  people 
in  general,  but  because  he  made  it  useless  to  argue 
for  the  belief  in  a  future  life.  Though  he  used  the 
term  Spiritualism  in  his  work  on  "  Pure  Reason " 
as  the  proper  antithesis  to  Materialism,  he  did  not 
regard  its  position  as  a  tenable  one.  He  did  not 
attempt  any  such  refutation  of  Materialism  as  did 
Berkeley,  and  so  left  the  field  of  speculation  free  to 
the  advocates  of  that  doctrine.  Swedenborg's  con- 
ceptions took  the  place  of  the  old  Spiritualism.  He 
was  the  contemporary  of  Kant,  and  the  latter's  work 
on  Dreams  of  a  Ghostseer,  inspired  by  his  study 
of  Swedenborg,  and  admitting  the  possibility  of 
communication  with  the  deceased,  if  they  existed, 
though  qualifying  the  communications  by  the  ab- 
normal condition  of  the  medium  through  which  they 
come,  on  this  account  virtually  left  this  conception 
of  Spiritualism  as  the  only  one  that  could  take  up 
the  argument  against  Materialism. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  whole  problem  of 
a  future  life  was  left  to  those  who  believed  in  the 
possibility  of  communication  with  the  dead,  the  intel- 
lectuals having  taken  to  curious  speculations  on  any 
and  all  subjects  that  had  no  human  interest.  The 
defence  of  Spiritualism  was  turned  over,  as  religion 
generally  was,  to  the  uneducated,  save  as  a  kind  of 
dissipation  for  the  emotional  and  aesthetic.  The 
chasm  that  had  always  separated  the  common  man 
and  the   philosopher  was   widened,   the  philosopher 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    203 

having  abandoned  the  last  belief  which  had  previ- 
ously given  him  authority  over  the  uneducated 
masses.  Democracy  came  in  to  deprive  him  also  of 
political  authority,  and  with  an  aristocratic  feeling 
to  cherish,  he  would  neither  educate  nor  govern 
those  whose  interests  still  lay  in  a  human  interpre- 
tation of  the  cosmos.  He  simply  sneered  at  them, 
and  contrived  to  get  his  living  out  of  their  labor. 
His  philosophy  was  for  the  schools  and  not  for  man. 
With  this  widening  of  the  breach  between  the  phil- 
osophic and  the  naive  mind  there  came  a  removal 
of  the  restraints  on  judgment  as  well  as  the  loss  of 
influence  by  the  intelligent  upon  those  who  sought 
the  consolation  of  hope  and  the  defence  of  their 
ideals  in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  the  world.  Spir- 
itualism was  left  for  its  conceptions  to  the  methods 
and  claims  of  charlatans.  Though  it  was  in  its  very 
inception,  both  in  its  primitive  form  and  in  its  re- 
vival by  Swedenborg,  a  concession  to  the  methods  of 
science,  the  class  that  should  have  taken  its  claims 
into  serious  consideration,  as  Kant  did  in  spite  of 
his  later  evasion  of  it,  turned  its  back  upon  the 
matter  and  allowed  its  cause  to  be  espoused  by  ad- 
venturers for  its  priests  and  by  fools  for  its  votaries. 
It  took  the  revival  of  Spiritualism  after  the  Fox 
sisters  to  bring  it  to  its  lowest  stage  of  development. 
Their  phenomena,  which  consisted  largely  of  "  raps  " 
in  answer  to  questions,  suggested  various  forms  of 
improvement,  and  though  they  later  confessed  to 
trickery  in  their  performances,  explaining  the 
"  raps "  as  having  been  produced  by  their  knees 
and  toes,  this  confession  did  not  put  an  end  to  similar 


204    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

attempts  at  fraud.  In  fact  the  methods  for  pro- 
ducing illusions  and  committing  fraud  in  the  name 
of  communicating  spirits  were  developed  and  mul- 
tiplied so  as  to  cover  rope-tying  tricks,  cabinet  per- 
formances and  materializing  seances,  and  slate- 
writing.  The  interest  of  intelligent  people  in  such 
phenomena  declined  after  the  exposures  and  confes- 
sions of  the  Fox  sisters,  and  the  claims  of  the  spir- 
itualists were  left  to  the  credulous  for  study  and 
maintenance.  Finally  the  Report  of  the  Seybert 
Commission  in  1887  effected  a  decided  check  to  the 
claims  and  interests  of  Spiritualism,  as  it  had  now 
come  to  represent  physical  phenomena,  and  it  would 
hardly  have  revived  except  for  the  work  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research.  The  publications  of 
this  body  contain  so  much  evidence  for  something 
supernormal,  and  its  members  have  so  generally  en- 
dorsed the  claims  of  telepathy  as  to  raise  again  some 
presumptions  for  beliefs  extending  beyond  mere  com- 
munication between  living  minds.  In  the  meantime 
the  conception  of  Spiritualism  had  been  determined 
by  the  type  of  phenomena  upon  which  its  claims 
were  based,  and  these  were  such  physical  facts  as 
materializations,  rope-tying  tricks,  mysterious  rap- 
pings,  slate-writing,  and  dark  seances.  That  it 
should  be  a  psychological  problem  no  one  seems  to 
have  dreamed  or  to  have  urged.  The  conception  of 
physical  miracles  still  prevailed  to  determine  the 
method  of  approach  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
Hence  a  term  which  once  had  a  reputable  import 
became  a  synonym  for  charlatanism  and  fraud.  It 
connoted  the  methods  of  adventurers  and  jugglers 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    205 

and  the  beliefs  of  the  most  ignorant.  There  has  been 
no  term  but  Idealism  to  take  the  place  of  the  older 
and  more  respectable  conception  of  the  facts  sup- 
posed to  point  the  waj  against  Materialism,  and  this 
was  equivocal.  But  intelligent  thinking  seemed  to 
have  no  other  resource  for  escaping  illusion  and  mis- 
understanding. Unfortunately  it  is  still  necessary 
to  notice  and  teach  caution  in  regard  to  the  phe- 
nomena and  methods  concerned  with  the  question  of 
the  destiny  of  the  soul  or  human  consciousness.  Men 
are  not  content  with  an  agnostic  creed,  but  they  are 
as  little  inclined,  when  they  are  intelligent,  to  run 
after  such  evidence  of  the  transcendental  or  "  super- 
natural "  as  prevails  in  the  exhibitions  of  the  aver- 
age spiritualistic  performance. 

I  shall  not  enter  further  into  the  history  of  Spir- 
itualism. Readers  interested  in  it  may  consult  such 
works  as  Truesdell's  Bottom  Facts  Concerning 
Spiritualism,  and  Podmore's  Modem  Spiritual- 
ism, I  have  briefly  outlined  its  history  for  the 
sake  of  illustrating  the  development  of  the  conception 
of  its  problems  and  the  persistent  antagonism  which 
philosophy  and  science  exhibited  toward  it;  an  an- 
tagonism forced  on  intelligent  men  by  the  degener- 
ated and  depraved  idea  of  evidence  which  the  com- 
mon mind  had  shown  in  its  treatment  of  the  issue. 
The  consequence  of  agnosticism,  as  I  have  indicated, 
was  the  removal  of  the  common  ground  of  interest 
in  philosophic  and  religious  belief,  and  the  great 
human  issues  were  left  to  the  uneducated  while  the 
curious  questions  of  speculation  were  confined  to 
academic    walls.      No    compromise    seemed    possible 


206    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

between  aristocratic  and  democratic  interests,  and  the 
vulgar  mind  assumed  a  monopoly  of  the  ways  and 
means  for  proving  or  defending  the  belief  in  a  future 
life,  with  the  natural  result  that  it  became  a  prey 
to  illusion  and  folly. 

I  propose,  therefore,  to  examine  the  difficulties 
which  this  mind  has  to  face  in  its  contentions  for 
physical  miracles  in  the  attempt  to  prove  spiritualis- 
tic claims.  There  are  two  general  types  of  phenom- 
ena to  which  men  have  appealed  in  this  controversy. 
The  first  is  what  I  have  called  the  physical  phenom- 
ena: the  second  is  what  I  shall  call  the  psychological 
phenomena.  In  some  narratives  of  experience  both 
types  are  associated,  and  this  regardless  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  either  of  them  is  to  be  accepted  as 
genuine  or  not.  I  am  now  concerned  only  with  the 
definition  or  classification  of  what  is  alleged.  The 
physical  phenomena  are  such  as  table-tipping,  slate- 
writing,  materializations,  rope-tying,  and  various 
cabinet  performances.  The  psychological  phenom- 
ena are  apparitions,  mediumistic  "  communications," 
and  such  as  are  classified  as  secondary  personality 
by  skeptics,  telepathic  coincidences,  and  clairvoyance, 
and  perhaps  premonitions. 

I  shall  insist  that  these  two  types  of  phenomena 
shall  be  kept  radically  distinct  from  each  other.  The 
spiritualists  generally  have  not  distinguished  between 
them,  but  have  quoted  them  all  alike  as  in  favor  of 
their  theory.  They  may  ultimately  prove  to  have 
at  least  some  right  on  their  side,  but  with  this  possi- 
bility I  have  nothing  to  do  in  the  present  discussion. 
We  have  not  yet  reached  any  such  assurance  regard- 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    207 

ing  the  facts  as  will  justify  our  classifying  the  two 
types  under  the  same  general  causes.  The  classifi- 
cation which  has  been  adopted  has  been  with  refer- 
ence to  their  relevancy  or  irrelevancy  to  the  spir- 
itistic hypothesis.  Physical  phenomena  must  be  ex- 
cluded at  once  as  not  of  themselves  in  any  respect 
evidence  of  spirit  action.  The  only  phenomena  that 
can  pretend  to  have  any  such  relevance  are  the  psy- 
chological. Even  these  have  to  be  subdivided  into 
telepathic,  clairvoyant,  premonitory,  and  mediumistic 
or  spiritistic  communications.  And  this  last  class  is 
relevant  only  when  the  facts  bear  directly  upon  the 
personal  identity  of  a  particular  deceased  person. 
When  the  problem  is  regarding  the  existence  of  dis- 
carnate  spirits,  it  is  one  that  can  be  decided  only  by 
such  evidence  as  would  prove  their  personal  identity. 
What  they  can  do  other  than  this  must  wait  upon  the 
proof  of  identity  and  we  can  assume  nothing  but  the 
power  to  tell  incidents  of  their  earthly  past.  We 
cannot  even  assume  how  they  can  communicate  with 
us.  This  must  be  proved  to  be  a  legitimate  hypothe- 
sis by  facts  which  exclude  all  other  explanations. 
Anything  else  that  they  may  be  supposed  to  do  must 
have  other  evidence  than  the  incidents  proving  per- 
sonal identity.  Hence  coincidences  showing  a  causal 
nexus  between  the  thoughts  of  living  persons  and 
knowledge  of  physical  things  and  events  not  known 
to  the  subject  evincing  it,  and  premonitions  along 
with  them,  will  have  to  be  excluded  from  the  evi- 
dence of  discarnate  action  until  the  identity  of  de- 
ceased persons  has  been  proved.  Much  more  must 
we  exclude  physical  phenomena  from  the  evidence, 


208    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

as  it  neither  bears  upon  the  question  of  identity  nor 
accords  so  easily  as  the  psychological  phenomena 
with  our  existing  scientific  knowledge. 

The  reliance  on  the  physical  phenomena  of  Spir- 
itualism is  a  relic  of  the  belief  in  miracles.  One  can 
understand  why  this  point  of  view  was  so  important 
in  antiquity.  The  theory  of  the  physical  universe  at 
that  time  was  a  coarse  type  of  materialism,  and  the 
religious  mind  appealed  to  real  or  alleged  facts 
which  that  view  could  not  explain,  and  it  laid  most 
stress  on  physical  phenomena  not -explicable  by  exist- 
ing theories.  Its  object  was  to  prove  a  spiritual  world 
which  was  then  a  refined  matter.  But  we  know  what 
became  of  the  reliance  on  physical  miracles.  The 
phenomena  reported  as  such  were  either  rejected  as 
impossible  or  regarded  as  so  defective  evidentially 
that  they  could  not  be  used  to  support  a  theory.  The 
time  came  when  an  appeal  to  phenomena  of  this  kind 
was  tantamount  to  an  abandonment  of  the  case,  and 
it  is  much  the  same  with  such  phenomena  to-day. 
No  doubt  physical  exceptions  to  known  laws  of  mate- 
rial action  would  prove  much,  but  they  would  not 
prove  spirits.  The  time  is  past  when  they  can  be 
used  for  any  such  purpose.  It  is  not  enough  to 
establish  a  fact  beyond  ordinary  physical  explanation. 
This  may  suggest  a  presumption  that  there  is  more 
than  is  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy,  but  it  will  not 
assure  the  belief  in  spirits.  The  development  of  phil- 
osophic thought  has  taken  us  far  beyond  the  ancient 
conception  of  spirit.  We  now  associate  spirit  with 
conscious  personality,  while  antiquity  was  satisfied 
with  something  immaterial,  whether  personal  or  not, 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    209 

though  it  included  the  personal  in  its  idea  of  spirit. 
But  in  our  more  definite  conception  of  it  we  insist 
that  personal  consciousness  is  its  essential  attribute, 
and  any  phenomena  which  do  not  prove  this  function 
of  it  are  not  acceptable  as  evidence  of  its  existence. 

There  are  two  types  of  the  physical  phenomena. 
Those  purely  such  or  unassociated  with  intelligent 
messages,  and  such  as  are  associated  with  alleged 
communications  with  discarnate  spirits.  The  first 
class  consists  of  such  as  raps,  the  movement  of  physi- 
cal objects,  rope-tying,  and  materializations  without 
messages.  The  second  type  consists  of  raps  with 
messages,  slate-writing  with  messages,  materializa- 
tion with  messages,  and  table-tipping  with  messages. 
The  irrelevance  of  the  former  has  been  sufficiently 
discussed.  Whether  genuine  or  not,  they  have  no 
pertinence  to  the  issue.  They  may  represent  phe- 
nomena worth  investigating  for  various  reasons.  But 
they  cannot  be  used  in  support  of  a  spiritistic  hy- 
pothesis, at  least  in  its  initial  development.  They 
occupy  a  secondary  place  in  the  problem. 

The  second  class  is  more  relevant,  because  it  pur- 
ports to  possess  communications  from  a  transcendental 
world.  But  there  is  a  fundamental  difficulty  with 
physical  phenomena  of  this  kind.  They  involve  two 
separate  problems.  The  first  is  the  question  of  the 
process  in  producing  the  physical  effect,  and  the 
second  is  the  source  of  the  alleged  message.  Suppose 
we  take  as  a  concrete  instance  slate-writing  and  its 
messages.  We  have  two  things  to  determine:  (1) 
How  the  message  got  on  the  slate,  and  (2)  whence 
came  the  message.     The  writing  on  the  slate  pur- 


210    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ports  to  be  inexplicable  by  ordinary  agencies.  It 
claims  to  have  been  done  by  processes  that  contradict 
all  that  we  are  accustomed  to  accept  as  intelligible 
in  the  material  world.  In  addition  to  this  miracle 
the  message  purports  to  come  from  beings  whose 
existence  has  also  to  be  proved  by  the  alleged  facts. 
Hence  in  phenomena  of  this  kind  we  have  two  prob- 
lems to  solve  instead  of  one,  and  by  insisting  on  such 
facts  we  only  complicate  our  issues.  What  we  need 
above  all  things  is  to  simplify  them,  if  this  be  pos- 
sible. 

In  the  psychological  phenomena  we  have  but  one 
mystery,  and  this  is  the  source  of  the  messages.  The 
apparition,  which  is  one  of  the  phenomena  to  which 
appeal  is  made,  claims  to  be  an  experience  by  the 
subject  and  to  represent  something  which  is  either 
intelligible  as  a  subjective  hallucination  with  which 
we  are  quite  familiar,  or  it  is  as  credible  as  telepathy, 
which  produces  similar  effects  on  the  mind  of  per- 
cipients. In  cases  of  automatic  writing  the  writing 
is  not  regarded  as  miraculous,  but  is  a  phenomenon 
with  which  we  are  familiar  in  instances  where  we  do 
not  suspect  or  accept  anything  as  supernormal.  The 
modus  operandi  of  the  phenomena  is  in  no  respect 
mysterious  to  us  or  inexplicable  by  ordinary  means. 
The  only  problem  which  we  have  to  solve  in  such 
cases  is  the  source  of  the  intelligent  messages.  All 
but  this  may  be  assumed  to  be  action  of  the  subject 
according  to  well-known  laws. 

With  slate-writing,  however,  and  other  similar 
physical  phenomena,  the  case  is  quite  different.  We 
have  to  explain  both  the  source  of  the  message  and 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    211 

the  method  of  producing  it  on  the  slate.  The  usual 
treatment  of  the  phenomena  is  not  this,  but  assumes 
that  the  phenomenon  is  a  simple  one  explicable  by  the 
same  cause.  But  as  we  may  assume  and  do  assume 
in  the  psychological  phenomena,  that  the  phenome- 
non as  it  appears  involves  action  of  the  subject  re- 
vealing it,  we  should  also  be  able  in  physical  phe- 
nomena to  explain  the  physical  aspect  of  it  in  this 
way  and  to  leave  no  mystery  but  the  source  of  the 
message.  But  the  claim  that  the  effect  is  spiritistic 
as  well  as  the  source  of  the  message  is  to  require  us 
to  believe  more  than  our  existing  scientific  knowledge 
will  permit  for  the  present.  If  only  the  medium  and 
advocate  of  such  phenomena  would  frankly  admit 
that  the  writing  or  physical  event  was  produced  by 
the  medium,  we  might  study  the  other  question  with 
more  patience  and  might  adopt  means  to  exclude  the 
medium's  previous  knowledge  of  the  facts  communi- 
cated. But  when  we  have  to  prove  also  that  the 
writing  or  physical  event  has  not  been  produced  in 
any  normal  way,  we  impose  two  tasks  on  ourselves. 
First  we  have  to  take  measures  to  prove  that  the 
medium  could  not  have  done  the  writing,  and  sec- 
ondly we  have  to  prevent  previous  normal  acquisition 
of  evidential  information.  This  is  simply  to  double 
our  task  and  to  expose  our  theory  of  the  supernor- 
mal character  of  the  phenomena  to  the  accusation 
that  they  contradict  the  known  laws  of  physical  ac- 
tion, while  the  psychological  phenomena  do  not  con- 
tradict these,  and  present  the  minimum  of  facts  not 
explicable  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  mind,  and  may 
fall  even  under  these,  if  telepathy  be  admitted  as 


212    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

possible.  If  we  have  the  facts  which  relate  most 
naturally  to  the  personal  identity  of  deceased  per- 
sons, we  might  assume  that  the  telepathy  is  from  such 
beings,  as  an  explanation  of  them,  all  the  concomi- 
tants of  the  phenomena  as  they  appear  being  refer- 
able to  the  subject  in  which  they  occur.  But  the 
physical  phenomena  have  no  conformity  with  known 
material  laws  to  make  them  credible  and  so  are  much 
more  difficult  to  prove. 

Let  me  analyze  the  case  and  show  what  supposi- 
tions are  possible  in  physical  phenomena.  Taking 
the  concrete  instance  of  slate-writing,  we  may  sup- 
pose (1)  that  both  the  writing  and  the  message  are 
by  the  medium.  (2)  We  may  suppose  that  they 
are  both  effected  by  spirits.  (3)  We  may  suppose 
that  the  writing  is  by  the  medium  and  that  the  mes- 
sage is  from  spirits.  (4)  We  may  suppose  that  the 
medium  has  fraudulently  obtained  his  information 
and  fraudulently  put  it  on  the  slate.  (5)  We  may 
suppose  that  the  medium  has  obtained  his  information 
supemormally  and  fraudulently  put  it  on  the  slate. 

Now  the  psychological  phenomena  show  us  that 
the  primary  question  to  settle  is  the  source  of  the 
messages  and  that  we  need  not  care  how  they  are 
given  if  we  can  show  that  they  have  not  been  pre- 
viously acquired  by  normal  means.  Hence  we  should 
not  care  how  the  messages  got  on  the  slate  or  were 
written  if  only  we  can  assure  ourselves  that  the  facts 
have  been  supemormally  acquired.  In  cases  like  Mrs. 
Piper  we  actually  see  the  message  written  on  a  pad 
before  our  eyes  in  broad  daylight.  Nothing  in  the 
physical  production  of  the  phenomenon  is  done  out 


PSEUBO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    213 

of  sight  or  in  tHe  dark.  We  have  only  to  prevent 
the  normal  acquisition  of  the  information  conveyed, 
and  this  is  much  easier  than  to  prevent  the  medium 
from  doing  the  writing  on  the  slate.  It  is  clear, 
therefore,  that  the  simplest  method  is  to  have  the 
message  written  in  sight,  as  this  removes  the  com- 
plications of  the  phenomena  and  renders  possible  the 
kind  of  scientific  observation  which  is  so  necessary 
to  reduce  the  amount  of  suspicion  and  accusable 
fraud  in  such  cases.  Hence  the  physical  phenomena 
must  take  a  secondary  place  in  the  problem.  They 
do  not  guarantee  the  existence  of  spirits  when  they 
are  supposed  to  be  genuine,  and  they  do  not  eliminate 
fraud  when  the  messages  are  supposed  to  be  super- 
normal, while  the  supernormal  is  more  easily  obtain- 
able without  them  altogether. 

Take  again  the  allege^  phenomena  of  material- 
ization. These  have  the  facts  of  apparitions,  whether 
veridical  or  subjective,  to  mislead  the  believer.  The 
acceptance  of  apparitions,  with  the  circumstance  that 
they  represent  an  apparently  visible  reality,  suggests 
the  credibility  of  the  "  realities  "  of  the  materializ- 
ing seance.  Besides  this  fact  there  is  the  long-stand- 
ing belief  in  physical  miracles  which  were  supposed 
to  be  consistent  with  other  knowledge.  But  there  is 
an  equivocation  in  the  very  use  of  the  term.  We  are 
never  sure  whether  the  believer  means  materialization 
or  etherealization.  We  might  assume,  as  we  must  on 
the  reality  hypothesis,  the  ethereal  nature  of  appari- 
tions. This  is  supposing  that  they  are  not  veridical 
hallucinations.  Granting  the  existence  of  either 
ethereal  realities  represented  in  apparitions  or  verid- 


214    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ical  hallucinations  pointing  to  such  a  reality  not 
represented  in  the  phenomenon,  we  might  well  admit 
the  possibility  of  such  apparitions  under  mediumistic 
conditions.  But  such  an  admission  would  not  carry 
with  it  the  credibility  of  such  claims  as  are  usually 
reported  from  materializing  seances.  By  materiali- 
zation the  believer  often,  if  not  always,  means  the 
physical  reformation  of  the  body  which  the  soul  has 
once  cast  off  by  death.  It  is  supposed  that  the  spirit 
has  power  to  make  or  form  matter  at  pleasure  and 
to  appear  in  its  genuine  physical  embodiment  and 
disappear  with  equal  ease. 

Now  without  impeaching  the  testimony  of  those 
who  report  such  phenomena  and  without  accusing 
them  of  illusion,  it  is  fair  to  ask  this  class  if  they 
have  ever  seriously  thought  of  what  demands  they 
make  on  scientific  minds  when  asking  that  such  claims 
shall  be  believed  .^^  In  the  age  when  matter  was  sup- 
posed to  be  a  creation  of  spirit  it  might  not  be  so 
difficult  to  accept  phenomena  involving  this  assump- 
tion, but  in  an  age  when  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  and  energy  is  assumed,  a  man  must  have  little 
sense  of  humor  who  expects  stories  of  materialization 
to  be  easily  believed.  He  must  also  have  as  little 
sense  of  humor  if  he  supposes  that  scientific  men  will 
accept  it  on  the  evidence  of  phenomena  occurring  in 
darkened  rooms  and  excluding  such  investigation  as 
the  claims  demand.  It  Is  impossible  for  any  sane 
man  to  cast  aside  the  well-established  laws  of  matter 
and  its  persistence  at  every  assertion  of  a  spirit 
materializing  a  body  for  itself  and  then  disappearing 
without   any   apparent  disturbance   in   the   physical 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    215 

world  about  it.  Such  a  claim  would  have  to  be  sub- 
jected to  as  scrutinizing  an  investigation  as  is  given 
to  the  claims  of  radiobes,  the  transmutation  of  the 
elements,  radio-therapeutics.  Such  an  examination 
has  never  been  made,  and  darkness  is  not  favorable 
to  it,  to  say  nothing  of  the  contradiction  which  the 
alleged  phenomena  represent  with  the  fundamental 
law  of  matter.  Other  discoveries  have  not  contra- 
dicted the  known  laws  of  reality,  though  they  have 
modified  or  extended  them.  But  no  claim  whatever 
has  been  made,  except  by  the  believer  in  materiali- 
zation, for  the  existence  of  phenomena  in  contra- 
vention of  the  accepted  indestructibility  of  matter 
in  any  such  manner  or  with  any  such  ease  as  the  ac- 
ceptance of  materialization  implies.  Scientific  stan- 
dards will  have  to  be  accepted  and  conformed  to,  or 
incredulity  can  be  the  only  sane  attitude  of  the  intel- 
ligent mind.  The  testimony  of  learned  men  is  not  suf- 
ficient. Too  many  learned  men  have  been  fooled  to 
rely  implicitly  on  general  intelligence  in  such  things. 
Two  considerations  will  have  to  be  religiously  observed 
before  any  allegation  can  be  respected.  The  first  is 
that  an  immense  quantity  of  experiments  in  various 
conditions  and  with  various  people  must  be  under- 
taken and  a  plausible  result  attained.  The  second 
is  that  the  conditions  under  which  the  phenomena 
occur  must  be  such  that  suitable  observations  can  be 
made  and  the  possibility  of  fraud  excluded.  Mere 
testimony  involving  the  judgment  of  the  experimenter 
will  not  suffice.  This  may  Justify  investigation,  but 
is  not  evidence.  The  whole  case  must  rest  on  an 
account  of  the  conditions  and  results  which  will  render 


216    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

probable  the  claims  made  without  reliance  on  the 
mere  authority  of  the  experimenter.  But  the  actual 
conditions  under  which  such  phenomena  are  said  to 
occur  are  a  fatal  barrier  to  scientific  observation,  and 
make  anything  but  skepticism  an  incautious  attitude 
of  mind. 

I  have  thus  far  treated  the  physical  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism  as  if  they  had  no  difficulties  to  face  ex- 
cept their  relation  to  the  existing  body  of  scientific 
knowledge  and  as  if  they  were  to  be  as  seriously  con- 
sidered as  any  new  discovery  in  the  field  of  physical 
science.  But  the  fact  is  that  they  have  much  more 
serious  objections  than  the  prejudice  of  physicists 
to  meet.  I  have  assumed  that  observers  and  reporters 
of  them  were  qualified  to  make  good  their  testimony 
and  that  honesty  in  this  testimony  made  it  acceptable. 
But  in  reality  we  are  not  entitled  to  any  such  assump- 
tion. The  prevailing  belief  is  that  honesty  is  a 
sufficient  qualification  to  make  any  statement  accept- 
able or  credible.  This  assumption  is  an  inheritance 
of  the  controversy  about  miracles  and  the  authen- 
ticity of  certain  Biblical  records.  We  have  had  it 
taught  that  the  honesty  of  the  witnesses  proved  the 
trustworthy  nature  of  their  narratives,  and  we  have 
accepted  this  criterion  without  reflecting  that  a  man 
may  be  treated  as  truthful  in  his  intentions  though 
he  does  not  report  his  facts  correctly.  It  requires 
much  more  than  honesty  to  tell  the  truth  in  man}^ 
situations.  A  man  must  have  the  intelligence  that 
can  observe  and  report  correctly  and  accurately 
what  is  done  in  his  presence.  Good  judgment  is  as 
important,  perhaps  a  more  important  qualification 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    ^17 

for  telling  the  truth  than  honesty.  One  needs  expe- 
rience in  dealing  with  the  things  observed  and  re- 
ported in  order  to  give  a  true  account  of  them.  Edu- 
cation and  long  training  and  experience  with  certain 
complicated  matters  are  absolutely  necessary  in  order 
to  tell  anything  whatever  accurately  about  them. 
Ignorant  honesty  will  not  secure  our  statements.  It 
must  be  intelligent  honesty,  and  this  intelligence 
must  extend  to  a  technical  and  detailed  knowledge  of 
the  phenomena  purporting  to  occur.  Otherwise  our 
report  of  them  must  be  subject  to  a  certain  amount 
of  suspicion  and  discount.  We  must  not  insist  that 
our  honesty  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  our  experience.  We  may  be  truthful  and  yet 
not  tell  the  truth,  if  we  may  be  allowed  a  paradoxical 
way  of  putting  the  matter.  We  may  be  veracious  in 
our  statements  and  yet  not  tell  the  facts  as  they  oc- 
curred. The  proper  guarantee  of  correctness  is  good 
judgment  as  well  as  moral  integrity,  and  if  we  lose 
sight  of  this  fact  we  only  expose  ourselves  to  difficul- 
ties which  we  had  not  expected  and  which  we  cannot 
meet. 

There  is  another  fact  which  reporters  of  physical 
phenomena  of  the  kind  under  consideration  will  not 
recognize.  It  is  their  liability  to  illusion  in  the  obser- 
vation of  them.  We  have  placed  such  a  price  on 
intelligence  that  men  do  not  like  to  admit  they  can 
be  fooled,  and  they  go  on  in  confidence  of  their  proof 
against  illusion  and  only  unfit  themselves  for  escape 
from  the  very  mistake  which  they  claim  does  not 
occur.  We  are  too  unwilling  to  admit  that  we  are 
exposed  to  illusions.    We  want  our  auditors  to  think 


218    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

that  we  are  sharp  and  alert,  and  we  go  on  thinking 
and  talking  as  if  we  were  safe  from  error.  It  would 
be  much  better  if  we  were  perfectly  conscious  of  our 
liability  to  illusion,  as  that  would  itself  be  a  protec- 
tion against  it.  No  man  is  fooled  who  knows  that  he 
is  fooled,  or  liable  to  be  so.  Such  a  person  can  sus- 
pend his  judgment.  He  knows  when  he  has  failed 
to  discover  all  the  facts,  and  if  he  is  familiar  with 
jugglers'  tricks  he  knows  how  to  reckon  with  situa- 
tions in  which  it  may  be  impossible  to  observe  all  the 
facts,  and  so  may  not  allow  himself  to  be  deluded  with 
the  idea  that  he  has  seen  all  that  is  necessary  to  give 
an  adequate  account  of  the  phenomena.  The  phe- 
nomena which  I  have  illustrated  in  the  chapter  on 
Illusions  show  that  all  of  us  in  our  most  normal  ex- 
perience have  our  inevitable  illusions,  and  we  may 
as  well  admit  that  we  cannot  escape  such  liabilities 
in  those  events  which  at  least  lie  on  the  border-line 
of  prestidigitation  and  have  certainly  been  most  fre- 
quently associated  with  the  arts  of  the  adventurer. 

Now  it  is  to  this  aspect  of  such  physical  phenomena 
that  I  wish  to  turn,  and  I  mean  to  assume  that  every 
one  of  us  is  exposed  to  illusion  in  the  observation  of 
them,  and  unless  we  admit  this  fact  we  shall  not  be  in 
a  position  to  suspect  the  real  explanation  of  many, 
if  not  all  of  them.  I  hold  as  a  matter  of  fact  that 
there  is  no  field  of  observation  in  which  we  are  so 
liable  to  illusion  as  in  the  alleged  physical  phenomena 
of  Spiritualism.  This  is  owing  to  the  conditions 
under  which  such  facts  are  reported.  These  condi- 
tions are  generally  such  as  prevent  either  the  accu- 
rate observation  of  what  does  occur  or  the  possible 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    219 

observation  of  the  whole  of  what  occurs.  I  must 
emphasize  this  circumstance  as  the  key  to  the  primary 
difficulties  in  connection  with  the  accounts  of  such 
phenomena  as  we  are  considering.  Let  me  begin  with 
an  illustration  by  the  materializing  seance. 

In  the  first  place  the  materializing  seance  is  in  the 
dark,  or  in  such  a  light  as  makes  scientific  observa- 
tion impossible.  In  the  second  place,  no  adequate 
freedom  of  observation  is  permitted  and  opportunities 
are  open  for  much  that  it  is  impossible  to  observe. 
Under  such  circumstances  no  sane  scientific  man  can 
admit  the  "  supernatural,"  and  it  matters  not  what 
may  actually  take  place.  The  primary  problem  is 
not  the  production  of  certain  real  or  alleged  facts, 
but  the  production  of  them  under  circumstances  which 
compel  conviction  in  the  skeptic.  Darkness  and  ina- 
bility for  continuous  and  complete  observation  are 
a  fatal  obstacle  to  the  admission  of  the  "  supernat- 
ural," especially  when  we  have  whole  generations  of 
fraud  associated  with  just  such  conditions.  This 
objection  must  be  removed  before  any  intelligent  man 
will  even  listen  to  stories  of  what  occurs  on  such 
occasions.  The  scientific  man  will  insist  that  oppor- 
tunities for  accurate  observation  must  be  admitted 
or  he  will  necessarily  repudiate  the  alleged  phenom- 
ena, and  he  cannot  be  denied  his  rights  in  this  matter 
by  any  who  demand  his  opinion  of  the  facts.  This 
must  be  an  axiom  in  such  investigations,  and  until  the 
claimants  of  physical  phenomena  supply  such  condi- 
tions and  opportunities  they  must  expect  to  meet 
nothing  but  skepticism.  The  burden  of  proof  lies 
on  them. 


220    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Let  me  illustrate  our  liability  to  illusion  from 
personal  experiences.  I  went  with  three  lady  friends 
to  a  materializing  seance  of  one  of  the  most  noto- 
rious "  mediums "  in  this  country.  None  of  the 
parties  with  me  believed  in  the  phenomena.  The 
experience,  however,  was  the  first  for  two  of  the 
ladies  with  me.  After  it  was  over  they  told  me,  with 
perfectly  apparent  interest,  that  they  had  seen  forms 
in  the  air  when  the  performance  was  not  going  on. 
They  had  hitherto  ridiculed  such  things,  but  their 
personal  vision  of  forms  in  the  air  had  impressed 
them  with  possibilities  which  they  had  not  previously 
been  disposed  to  admit.  Now  although  I  saw  noth- 
ing in  the  air,  I  did  note  certain  interesting  facts. 
I  observed  when  the  seance  was  not  going  on  that  the 
light  was  not  so  dim  as  during  the  performance.  I 
saw  a  slide  altered  in  the  dim  lantern  used  to  pro- 
duce a  certain  kind  of  luminosity  in  the  room.  I 
noted  also,  with  the  relaxation  of  the  intense  strain 
of  attention,  that  a  sort  of  phosphorescent  light  suf- 
fused itself  through  the  room,  and  this  condition  was 
very  favorable  to  the  production  of  illusions  and  hal- 
lucinations on  the  part  of  the  spectator,  especially  if 
anything  like  muscce  volitantes  floated  about  in  the 
aqueous  humor  of  the  eyes  or  a  spectral  defect  existed 
on  the  retina.  The  modification  of  the  muscles  of 
accommodation  in  such  circumstances  might  well  pre- 
pare the  sense  of  vision  for  spectral  phenomena,  and 
I  so  explained  the  visual  forms  reported  by  my 
friends.  I  had  occasion  some  years  later  to  confirm 
this  conjecture.  I  witnessed  another  seance  of  this 
same  "  medium,"  and  before  the  performance  began 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    2^1 

she  made  a  speech  in  bright  gaslight.  Then  all  the 
lights  were  suddenly  turned  out  except  the  dim  lan- 
tern with  its  dim  blue  light  radiating  into  the  room. 
The  effect  of  this  on  the  field  of  vision  was  most 
interesting.  For  some  minutes  I  was  almost  blind 
with  the  after-effects  of  the  reaction,  or  what  the 
Germans  call  the  "  Eigenlicht "  of  the  eyes.  Be- 
sides a  generally  diffused  phosphorescent  light  in  the 
room  making  the  perception  of  objects  impossible,  I 
also  noticed  bright  yellow  patches  of  light  of  various 
shapes,  most  of  them  assuming  definite  form,  but  geo- 
metrical and  not  human.  After  some  time  the  eyes 
began  to  become  used  to  the  conditions,  and  the  phos- 
phorescent light  gradually  disappeared  and  I  could 
see  the  persons  sitting  about  me  clearly  enough  to 
recognize  shirt-waists  and  form.  The  whole  visual 
effect  of  the  reaction  after  the  sudden  turning  off  of 
the  lights  disappeared  and  I  finally  became  able  to 
make  fairly  good  observations  of  certain  things  from 
which  I  could  easily  infer  fraud.  But  for  awhile 
I  was  totally  unfit  to  perceive  anything  but  what  ret- 
inal reaction  produced.  Just  imagine  what  is  likely 
to  occur  with  untrained  observers,  as  with  the  ladies 
who  were  present  at  the  first  of  these  two  seances. 
Imagine  also  what  is  likely  to  occur  with  persons 
whose  vision  is  defective  under  such  circumstances. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  these  ladies  reported  facts  of 
experience,  but  they  were  in  no  position  to  report 
them  rightly,  nor  even  to  ascertain  those  concomi- 
tants which  affected  their  interpretation  of  experi- 
ence. To  illustrate  this  fact  further  I  may  remark 
that,  on  this   occasion,   I   saw  a  lady  recognize  an 


^22    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

uncle  who  had  died  about  two  weeks  previously, 
V^  though  I  could  see  the  wig  on  the  person  appearing 
and  personating  that  uncle.  The  skin  of  the  wig  was 
plainly  visible  on  the  forehead,  my  eyesight  happen- 
ing to  be  extraordinarily  good. 

Another  fact  of  importance  in  such  situations 
should  be  remarked.  Our  interpretation  of  such  phe- 
nomena will  depend  as  much  upon  our  previous  knowl- 
edge of  the  ways  in  which  they  can  be  simulated  or 
produced  as  upon  our  perceptions  at  the  time.  I 
have  already  shown  how  our  present  state  of  con- 
sciousness affects  what  we  see.  The  chapter  on  Illu- 
sions explained  this  at  length.  Now  the  ladies  who 
accompanied  me  to  the  seance  above  mentioned  were 
puzzled  to  account  for  the  appearance  of  forms  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor  and  their  apparent  vanishing 
in  the  same  place.  They  seemed  to  recognize  definite 
human  forms  that  appeared  and  disappeared  in  an 
inexplicable  manner,  representing  the  claims  of  mate- 
rialization and  dematerialization.  I  saw  the  same 
forms,  but  knowing  how  they  could  be  produced  I 
did  not  recognize  them  to  be  as  they  were  reported 
to  me.  I  saw  only  a  sheet,  and  did  not  infer,  as  they 
did,  the  presence  of  anything  but  an  invisible  ma- 
nipulator. I  would  not  describe  the  phenomenon  as 
a  human  form.  One  who  did  not  know  how  the  effect 
could  be  produced  might  be  pardoned  for  this  infer- 
ence, but  one  who  knew  the  possibilities  would  not 
have  this  temptation. 
^  Let  me  mention  a  similar  instance  for  hearing.  It 
is  a  case  in  which  the  apparent  nature  of  the  sound 
was  determined  by  the  observer's  state  of  mind.     A 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    ^S 

gentleman  was  awakened  by  hearing  some  one  groan- 
ing as  if  in  great  pain.  He  sprang  out  of  bed,  lit 
a  match,  and  looked  about  the  room.  Finding  no  one, 
he  opened  the  door  and  looked  about  the  hall  outside. 
The  groaning  ceased  and  the  man  went  back  to  bed. 
In  a  short  time  he  again  heard  the  groaning  and  got 
up  again  to  look  about  the  room,  and  opening  the 
door,  repeated  his  search  outside.  But  he  found 
nothing  and  again  retired,  as  the  noise  ceased  again. 
He  soon  heard  it  a  third  time,  and  arose,  opened  the 
door  into  the  hall  and  found  no  traces  of  any  one. 
The  groaning  ceased  again.  He  came  back  into  the 
room  puzzled,  and  while  cogitating  on  the  matter 
heard  the  sound  a  fourth  time,  and  on  opening  the 
door  found  that  the  noise  ceased.  He  waited  awhile 
and  heard  it  again.  Opening  the  door  it  again  ceased, 
and  so  he  experimented  until  he  found  that  it  was  the 
wind  blowing  through  a  crack  in  the  door  which  had 
caused  the  noise.  The  interesting  fact,  however,  is 
that  the  man  now  observed  that  the  sound  was  no 
more  like  that  of  a  groamng  sufferer.  As  soon  as 
he  knew  what  it  really  was,  or  what  explained  it,  he 
had  no  illusion  as  to  its  being  a  suffering  person. 

I  myself  had  a  similar  illusion  not  long  since.  I 
happened  to  turn  round  on  my  chair  to  look  at  the 
time.  I  distinctly  heard  the  voice  of  my  little  girl, 
as  if  she  were  down  at  the  basement  door.  For  a 
moment  I  expected  to  hear  her  come  up-stairs.  I 
turned  back  to  go  on  with  my  work,  and  as  she  did 
not  appear  I  thought  to  turn  on  my  chair  again,  and 
I  heard  the  same  voice,  or  noise.  I  repeated  the  ex- 
periment  and   found  that  it  was  the   squeaking   of 


SS4    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

my  chair.  Now  that  I  knew  what  it  was  the  illusion 
was  not  distinct.  I  could  with  difficulty  detect  the 
resemblance  between  it  and  my  child's  voice.  But  in 
my  occupied  mental  state  this  apparent  resemblance 
magnified  itself  and  I  required  only  to  escape  the 
abstraction  of  my  employment  in  order  to  discover 
the  real  nature  of  the  sound. 

In  the  instance  of  the  apparent  groaning  the  man 
had  been  awakened  from  sleep  by  the  sound,  and  we 
know  how  distorted  the  impressions  of  sleep  life  are. 
Any  stimulus  will  give  rise  to  almost  any  experience, 
and  it  may  not  be  in  the  sense  which  is  actually 
stimulated  at  the  time.  The  preconception  caused 
by  the  sleep  condition  is  hard  to  break  down,  and 
hence  this  supplied  the  point  of  view  from  which  the 
ordinary  stimulus  is  interpreted.  It  will  be  so  with 
our  visual  experiences.  Unless  we  are  familiar  with 
V^  the  process  by  which  all  sorts  of  pseudo-effects  can 
be  produced,  we  are  sure  to  misrepresent  what  actu- 
ally occurs  on  any  occasion,  and  especially  under  con- 
ditions where  visual  perception  is  not  clear.  We  are 
so  familiar  with  this  in  normal  situations  that  we 
wonder  that  the  most  ordinary  person  does  not  reckon 
with  it  in  such  circumstances  as  accompany  material- 
izing seances. 

But  the  whole  secret  of  the  apparent  miracle  is 
often  in  incidents  which  we  do  not  see  and  cannot 
see.  For  instance,  we  may  examine  the  cabinets  in 
such  performances  and  pronounce  them  proof  against 
escape  by  the  person  supposedly  locked  in  them.  But 
unless  we  are  familiar  with  the  method  by  which 
they  are  made  and  by  which  secret  locks  are  con- 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    225 

cealed  in  them,  we  are  not  secure  against  an  illusion 
which  is  perhaps  more  frequent  than  any  other, 
namely,  the  illusion  of  supposing  a  thing  is  pro- 
tected against  a  phenomenon,  which,  in  fact,  is  very 
easy  and  simple  when  the  facts  are  fully  known. 
Trap-doors,  concealed  locks,  dummy  apparatus,  and 
various  methods  of  producing  illusions  will  escape 
our  detection  unless  we  are  already  familiar  with  the 
multiform  methods  of  jugglers.  If  we  would  only 
seriouly  observe  such  performances  as  those  of  Her- 
mann and  Keller,  we  should  have  some  conception 
of  the  illusions  to  which  we  are  all  exposed  when  we 
are  not  able  to  observe  all  that  is  done.  Often,  per- 
haps most  frequently,  the  seances  of  "  mediums  "  are 
much  poorer  exhibitions  than  those  of  the  most  ordi- 
nary prestidigitator,  and  yet  men  will  solemnly  tell 
us  of  "  supernatural "  appearances  and  events  as  oc- 
curring in  them.  A  little  more  complete  observation 
and  an  opportunity  to  see  that  part  of  the  perform- 
ance which  is  carefully  concealed  would  convert  the 
affair  into  the  simplest  of  tricks. 

Let  me  give  some  examples  of  my  personal  ex- 
periences with  slate-writers.  In  narrating  these  I 
shall  first  tell  my  story  as  it  is  usually  told  by  in- 
experienced observers,  and  then  afterwards  tell  the 
real  facts  as  closer  observation  reveals  them  or  as 
the  juggler  himself  explained  them. 

A  gentleman  who  was  himself  an  expert  in  the 
production  of  pseudo-spiritistic  phenomena  and  who 
was  a  stranger  to  me  advertised  an  exposure  of  the 
tricks  by  which  people  are  so  generally  deceived.  I 
wished  to  see  the  tricks  performed,  but  I  did  not 


226    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

wish  to  see  the  exposure  and  explanation  of  them. 
So  I  went  to  him  before  the  performance  and  ex- 
plained to  him  my  desire.  The  result  was  an  appoint- 
ment to  meet  him  in  his  home,  where  he  would  per- 
form his  tricks  and  leave  me  to  find  out  what  I  could 
and  to  be  fooled  if  I  did  not  find  them  out  and 
wished  to  believe  they  were  anything  but  tricks.  My 
object  was  to  test  my  own  powers  of  observation  in 
such  circumstances  and  to  see  how  much  I  could  carry 
away  from  the  performance  for  narration.  I  made 
the  agreement  that  he  was  not  to  explain  anything 
until  after  the  performance  was  over.  I  went  pre- 
pared to  take  notes,  which  I  did.  But  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  I  could  take  but  a  very  small  part  of 
the  notes  necessary  to  give  a  clear  and  full  account 
of  such  performances.  I  moreover  concluded  also 
I  that  five  minutes  after  the  performance  of  any  trick 
/  my  memory  was  not  good  enough  to  recall  important 
facts  which  would  be  necessary  to  tell  the  story 
rightly  and  fully  to  one  who  had  not  observed  it. 
But  the  most  important  conclusion  was  that  many 
things  took  place  which  I  could  not  observe  at  all, 
as  the  sequel  showed  to  be  true. 

Let  me  describe  the  first  experiment  as  the  ordi- 
nary observer  usually  describes  such  performances. 
I  was  given  two  folding  and  hinged  slates  to  clean, 
which  I  did  with  a  dry  rag  to  prevent  such  a  thing 
as  the  development  of  previously  written  messages 
by  moisture.  As  soon  as  this  was  done,  having  taken 
care  to  see  that  no  writing  was  on  the  slates,  I  placed 
them  on  the  table  in  full  sight.  We  did  not  touch 
the  slates  while  the  writing  was  being  done.     They 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    227 

remained  on  the  table  a  few  minutes,  perhaps  two 
or  three.  When  the  slates  were  opened  there  was 
writing  on  one  side  of  one  of  them  covering  the 
most  of  the  slate. 

As  this  stands  I  doubt  if  any  one  could  explain  the 
phenomena.  The  conjurer  might  notice  that  I  had 
not  told  all  the  story,  but  the  ordinary  person  would 
suppose  from  my  statement  that  the  fact  that  neither 
of  us  touched  the  slates  while  the  writing  was  going 
on  eliminated  the  performance  of  the  writing  by  the 
gentleman  with  whom  I  was  experimenting.  But 
the  fact  is  that  I  have  omitted  two  things  in  the 
account  and  assumed  another  which  begs  the  question. 
I  speak  of  the  writing  going  on  as  if  this  were  a 
fact.  But  in  reality  I  had  no  evidence  that  the 
writing  was  done  while  the  slates  were  on  the  table. 
I  might  naturally  infer  from  my  assumption  that  I 
had  cleaned  the  slates,  that  the  writing  came  on  it 
afterward.  But  I  omitted  to  say  that  I  had  not 
in  any  way  examined  the  slates  and  that  I  had  not 
brought  them  with  me.  Secondly,  I  did  not  say  who 
opened  the  slates.  This  last  incident  is  most  im- 
portant. It  was  the  conjurer  who  opened  the  slates, 
and  in  doing  so  he  let  a  flap  fall  into  his  lap.  I 
could  not  see  this  act,  as  he  opened  them  so  that,  to 
see  it,  I  should  have  to  see  through  the  slates.  Hence 
in  "  cleaning  the  slate "  I  had  not  cleaned  them  at 
all.  I  cleaned  two  sides  of  one  slate  and  one  side 
of  the  other,  and  the  flap  on  the  remaining  side  of 
this  slate.  The  flap  could  not  be  distinguished  in 
color  and  appearance  from  the  slate.  Under  it  was 
the  writing  prepared  beforehand. 


228    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Again  I  cleaned  seven  slates  and  threw  them  on 
the  floor.  When  I  picked  them  up,  which  was  almost 
immediately  after  cleaning  the  last  one,  I  found  the 
side  of  one  slate  full  of  writing.  The  slates  were 
cleaned  with  a  dry  cloth. 

I  noticed  at  the  time  that  the  conjurer  moved  the 
slates  about  over  the  floor,  but  I  did  not  see  how  this 
aff^ected  the  performance.  I  was  told,  however,  that 
a  prepared  slate  had  been  concealed  under  the  carpet 
and  removed  while  moving  the  other  slates  about  and 
substituting  one  of  the  slates  that  I  had  cleaned. 
I  did  not  see  this,  as  I  was  occupied  with  my  work 
of  cleaning  the  slates. 

Another  instance  was  the  following.  An  electrical 
apparatus  for  telegraphing  was  made  up  consisting 
of  a  box  and  a  dry  cell.  I  prepared  some  pellets 
with  questions  on  them  and  laid  them  on  the  table. 
The  man  was  not  allowed  to  see  me  write  them.  When 
I  was  ready  he  picked  one  of  them  up  and  threw  it 
into  the  box,  and  presently  the  message  in  answer 
to  the  question  was  ticked  out  in  the  Morse  alphabet. 
The  same  was  done  with  the  other  questions. 

The  error  of  this  account  is  in  the  statement  that 
he  threw  the  pellets  into  the  box.  He  did  nothing 
of  the  kind.  He  only  appeared  to  do  this.  He  held 
the  lid  of  the  box  with  the  left  hand  and  picked  up 
the  pellets  with  the  right  and  made  the  motions  of 
throwing  them  into  the  box,  but  took  them  below  the 
edge  of  the  table,  where  he  opened  them  and  read 
them,  and  with  the  left  hand,  after  closing  the  lid 
of  the  box,  he  pressed  slightly  on  the  lid  and  ticked 
the  messages  out  himself.     The  important  point  in 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    229 

my  observation  is  that  it  was  my  inference,  not 
my  perception,  that  led  to  the  statement  that  the 
pellets  were  thrown  into  the  box.  I  could  not  ac- 
tually see  the  act  done,  as  to  do  so  I  should  have  to 
have  been  able  to  see  through  the  lid  of  the  box.  But 
it  would  have  been  a  natural  inference  from  the  man's 
movements  to  infer  the  act.  No  other  impression 
would  be  apparent  to  the  unwary,  and  at  this  point 
the  description  of  such  phenomena  is  sure  to  err. 
Any  suspicion  of  the  performance  would  be  suggested 
by  the  general  knowledge  of  fraud  in  such  things  and 
by  special  acquaintance  with  the  method  by  which  the 
trick  could  be  done. 

These  are  very  simple  instances  of  jugglers' 
tricks,  and  are  much  less  mysterious  or  complicated 
than  many  of  them.  I  have  quoted  them  because 
they  represent  personal  experiences  which  I  had  for 
the  very  purpose  of  examining  my  own  liability  to 
illusion  and  the  extent  of  my  capacities  for  observa- 
tion. The  most  important  result  in  them  was  the 
limited  opportunities  which  I  had  for  seeing  all  that 
occurred,  and  to  see  all  that  occurred  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  forming  a  rational  judgment  of  the 
phenomena.  It  was  physically  impossible  to  see  some 
things  under  the  circumstances,  and  any  one  who 
should  imagine  that  he  had  seen  all  that  was  neces- 
sary to  form  an  intelligent  judgment  of  the  facts 
would  be  sure  to  make  a  fool  of  himself.  It  is  what 
we  do  not  see  that  often  explains  the  trick  and  ex- 
plains it  in  a  very  simple  way.  We  must  always 
be  certain  that  we  see  all  that  occurs,  or  all  that  it 
is  possible  for  any  one  to  see,   and  to  secure  this 


230    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

result  it  is  necessary  for  the  observer  to  determine 
the  conditions  under  which  the  experiments  are  per- 
formed. This  is  never  the  case  in  professional  per- 
formances. 

I  give  one  more  personal  experience  of  some  inter- 
est, and  again  I  shall  describe  it  as  such  things  are 
usually  described,  showing  afterward  just  what  ac- 
tually took  place.  I  was  asked  to  have  an  experi- 
ment with  a  man  who  claimed  to  be  clairvoyant. 
When  I  arrived  I  was  asked  to  write  the  maiden 
name  of  my  mother  on  one  slip  of  paper  and  three 
questions  on  other  slips.  The  man  left  the  room, 
and  I  had  a  friend  with  me  to  occupy  his  attention 
in  the  other  room.  It  was  in  the  man's  hotel  and 
the  door  was  shut  after  him.  He  could  not  see 
where  I  was  if  the  door  had  been  open.  I  prepared 
my  slips  alone  and  put  them  in  my  vest-pocket.  When 
the  man  came  in  he  asked  me  to  put  each  pellet 
against  his  head  and  then  put  it  In  my  vest-pocket 
again.  I  did  so.  I  then  held  one  in  my  fingers  and 
he  lit  it  with  a  match  and  burned  it  up  on  an  ink-well, 
and  in  their  order  he  announced  the  contents  of  the 
pellets  and  answered  the  questions. 

This  account,  however,  is  not  at  all  accurate.  I 
made  very  careful  observations  at  the  time  and  wrote 
out  a  full  account  of  the  experiment  immediately  on 
my  return  home.  Let  me  note  the  following  most 
important  facts  which  enabled  me  to  discover  the 
trick  after  I  got  home.  /  did  not  see  through  the 
trick  at  the  time.  But  I  did  things  and  remembered 
them  which  enabled  me  to  ascertain  what  the  trick 
was  afterward. 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    231 

The  man  himself  made  the  shps  of  paper  on  which 
I  wrote  the  name  and  questions.  He  took  one  slip 
with  him.  I  noticed  this  fact  distinctly.  On  his 
return  from  the  room,  noticing  that  I  had  not  folded 
mine  enough,  he  asked  me  to  fold  them  still  more. 
I  had  not  folded  mine  as  he  had  his,  and  as  I  always 
obey  orders  in  such  emergencies,  so  as  not  to  show 
my  skepticism,  I  folded  mine  as  directed.  He  then 
asked  me  to  place  each  pellet  in  order  against  his 
forehead  for  a  moment  and  put  it  in  my  other  vest- 
pocket.  I  did  so  and  held  the  last  one  in  my  fingers 
after  touching  his  forehead  with  it.  He  then  ap- 
peared to  light  it  with  a  match  and  burn  it  up  as 
described.  I  then  took  another  pellet  out  of  my 
pocket  and  held  it  in  front  of  me  near  the  man. 
I  was  then  asked  to  hold  my  left  hand  against  the 
man's  forehead  so  that  he  could  read  the  contents 
clairvoyantly.  This  was  to  serve  as  a  help  in  the 
reading.  But  it  gave  the  man  an  excuse  for  push- 
ing his  head  against  my  hand  in  a  way  to  stoop  over 
and  read  the  contents  of  the  pellet  which  he  was 
supposed  to  have  burned,  and  when  this  was  done 
he  took  the  second  pellet  from  my  fingers  and  I 
replaced  it  by  the  third.  In  the  same  way  he  went 
through  all  the  pellets. 

Now  what  the  man  had  done  was  to  exchange  his 
pellet  for  my  first  one  and  bum  up  his  own  instead 
of  mine.  This  enabled  him  to  have  one  pellet  ahead 
of  mine  all  the  while  and  to  unfold  it  below  the 
edge  of  the  table  which  was  between  us.  Now  the 
important  point  to  remark  is  the  fact  that  I  neither 
saw  nor  felt  him  exchange  the  pellets,   and  yet  I 


232    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

was  watching  him  with  all  the  care  I  knew  how  to 
exercise,  though  I  did  not  know  previously  what  the 
trick  was  or  could  be.  You  may  ask  then  how  I 
know  that  he  exchanged  the  pellets.  Well,  the 
answer  is  simple.  /  brought  all  four  of  my  pellets 
home  with  me.  I  went  to  the  fellow's  waste-hasket 
and  found  the  fourth  torn  m  three  pieces  and  with  my 
question  on  it.  Hence  it  was  that  only  when  I  came 
to  write  out  my  report  was  I  able  to  discover  the 
proof  of  what  took  place.  I  was  too  busily  employed 
by  distractions  of  attention  which  the  fellow  insti- 
tuted to  make  more  than  a  partial  set  of  observa- 
tions, but  these  were  sufficient  when  away,  and  put- 
ting two  and  two  together,  to  discover  the  modus 
operandi  of  the  trick.  Of  course  I  was  already 
familiar  in  general  with  the  pellet  trick,  but  had  not 
seen  this  particular  form  of  it  before.  One  must, 
however,  simply  set  it  down  as  an  axiom  that  pellets 
simply  condemn  a  pretension  the  moment  that  they 
are  proposed,  no  matter  what  we  think  about  the 
appearance  of  the  performance. 

I  shall  refer  next  to  a  celebrated  case  which  Spir- 
itualists always  quote  in  proof  of  their  contention. 
It  is  that  of  Professor  ZoUner  and  the  tying  of 
four  knots  in  an  endless  cord,  a  cord  tied  at  the 
ends  and  sealed  with  wax  seals.  ZoUner  and  Hare 
are  constantly  quoted  because  they  were  men  of 
some  reputation  in  their  respective  universities, 
ZoUner  of  Leipsic  and  Hare  of  Pennsylvania.  For 
this  reason  it  will  be  well  to  examine  ZoUner's  experi- 
ment and  statements  to  see  if  they  are  as  conclusive 
as  they  appear.     He  gives  his  account  of  the  ex- 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA 

periment  in  his  work  on  Transcendental  PhysicSy 
in  which  he  tries  to  explain  the  physical  phenomena 
by  means  of  his  pet  theory  of  the  fourth  dimension 
of  space.  ZoUner  describes  his  experiment  as  fol- 
lows: 

"  The  hempen  cord  had  a  thickness  of  about  a 
millimetre;  it  was  strong  and  new,  having  been 
bought  by  myself.  Its  single  length,  before  the 
tying  of  the  knots,  was  about  149  centimetres;  the 
length,  therefore,  of  the  double  string,  the  ends 
having  been  joined,  about  seventy- four  centims.  The 
ends  were  tied  together  in  an  ordinary  knot,  and 
then  —  protruding  from  the  knot  by  about  1.5 
centims.  —  were  laid  on  a  piece  of  paper  and  sealed 
to  the  same  with  ordinary  sealing-wax,  so  that  the 
knot  just  remained  visible  at  the  border  of  the  seal. 
The  paper  around  the  seal  was  then  cut  off,  as 
shown  in  the  illustration. 

''  The  above  described  sealing  of  the  two  strings, 
with  my  own  seal,  was  effected  hy  myself  in  my  apart- 
ments, on  the  evening  of  December  16th,  1877,  at 
nine  o'clock,  under  the  eyes  of  several  of  my  friends 
and  colleagues,  and  not  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Slade. 
Two  other  strings  of  the  same  quality  and  dimen- 
sions were  sealed  by  Wilhelm  Weber  with  his  seal, 
and  in  his  own  rooms,  on  the  morning  of  the  17th  of 
December,  at  10.30  a.m.  With  these  four  cords 
I  went  to  the  neighboring  dwelling  of  one  of  my 
friends,  who  had  offered  to  Mr.  Henry  Slade  the 
hospitalities  of  his  house,  so  as  to  place  him  exclu- 
sively at  my  own  and  my  friend's  disposition,  and 
for  the  time  withdrawing  him  from  the  public.    The 


/ 

234    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

seance  in  question  took  place  in  my  friend's  sitting- 
room  immediately  after  my  arrival.  I  myself  selected 
one  of  the  four  sealed  cords,  and,  in  order  never 
to  lose  sight  of  it  before  we  sat  down  at  the  table, 
I  hung  it  around  my  neck,  —  the  seal  in  front  al- 
ways within  my  sight.  During  the  seance^  as  pre- 
viously stated,  I  constantly  kept  the  seal  —  remaining 
unaltered  —  before  me  on  the  table.  Mr.  Slade's 
hands  remained  all  the  time  in  sight;  with  the  left 
he  often  touched  his  forehead,  complaining  of  pain- 
ful sensations.  The  portion  of  the  string  hanging 
rested  on  my  lap,  —  out  of  my  sight,  it  is  true,  — 
but  Mr.  Slade's  hands  always  remained  visible  to 
me.  I  particularly  noticed  that  Mr.  Slade's  hands 
were  not  withdrawn  or  changed  in  position.  He 
himself  appeared  to  be  perfectly  passive,  so  that  we 
cannot  advance  the  assertion  of  his  having  tied  the 
knots  by  his  consciows  will,  but  only  that  they,  under 
these  detailed  circumstances,  were  formed  in  his 
presence  without  visible  contact,  and  in  a  room  il- 
luminated by  bright  daylight." 

The  first  thing  to  be  remarked  about  Zollner's 
experiment  thus  described  is  the  fact  that  he  does 
not  show  the  slightest  consciousness  of  the  psycho- 
logical elements  entering  into  his  experiment.  We 
may  digress  at  this  point  enough  to  remark  also 
that,  in  this  period,  the  primary  interest  in  Spirit- 
ualism was  in  its  physical  claims,  a  most  significant 
fact  when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  traditional 
conceptions  of  miracles  and  from  that  of  the  physical 
sciences  which  had  usurped  the  right  to  explain  all 
the  phenomena  of  human  experience.     Hence  ZoUner 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA     235 

approaches  the  problem  with  the  assumption  that 
psychology  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  and  that  he 
has  not  to  question  the  completeness  and  assurance 
of  his  observation.  He  has  appeared  entirely  igno- 
rant of  the  maxim  which  requires  more  continuous 
observation  when  dealing  with  conscious  beings  than 
when  dealing  with  inanimate  bodies  or  forces.  Hence 
the  following  considerations  affecting  the  integrity 
of  his  account  of  the  phenomena. 

There  are  a  number  of  facts  to  be  noted  in  refer- 
ence to  the  defective  nature  of  the  evidence  here  ad- 
duced in  support  of  anything  extraordinary  and 
against  a  very  simple  trick.  (1)  We  should  mark 
the  disproportionate  amount  of  detail  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  preparations  for  the  experiment  and  in 
the  description  of  the  experiment  itself.  This  is  the 
natural  habit  of  the  physicist,  who  either  imagines 
that  the  preparation  is  the  main  thing  or  leaves  to 
others  the  verification  of  his  work.  But  the  point 
where  he  should  have  shown  the  most  care  and  the 
most  minute  description  was  during  the  performance. 
(2)  He  does  not  say  anything  whatever  about  the  his- 
tory of  the  other  three  cords  which  he  took  with  him. 
We  should  know  where  they  were  put  during  the  per- 
formance and  what  became  of  them.  (3)  We  are 
not  told  anything  to  show  that  he  had  compared  the 
cord  with  the  knots  in  it  after  the  seance  with  the  cord 
as  taken  to  Slade.  It  ought  to  have  been  accurately 
measured  after  the  performance  to  see  if  any  differ- 
ence between  it  then  and  before  could  be  detected.  In 
other  words,  Zollner  should  have  assumed  the  possibil- 
ity of  substituting  one  cord  for  another,  which  he 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

thought  he  had  excluded.  (4)  He  does  not  tell  us 
whether  he  examined  the  paper  afterward  on  which 
the  wax  seals  were  pasted.  Whether  a  substitute  cord 
was  possible  or  not,  this  examination  should  have 
been  made  as  an  evidential  precaution.  (5)  He  says 
nothing  about  any  careful  examination  of  the  seals 
to  show  that  they  were  identical  with  those  he  had 
put  on  the  knotted  end  of  the  cord.  (6)  He  does  not 
say  a  word  about  the  amount  of  time  employed  in  the 
experiment  or  the  tying  of  the  "  fourth  dimension 
knots."  (7)  Most  important  of  all  the  omissions  is 
one  which  was  observed  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  in  the 
study  of  the  case.  Zollner  does  not  tell  us  that  the 
experiment  was  made  several  times  before  it  succeeded. 
This  was  stated  in  another  work  by  the  author.  The 
failure  gave  Slade  an  opportunity  to  prepare  dupli- 
cate cords,  after  observing  the  one  or  ones  Zollner 
had  with  him,  and  to  substitute  his  own  cord  for 
that  of  Zollner.  (8)  He  does  not  give  any  details 
of  what  went  on  between  the  time  of  sitting  down  at 
the  table  and  the  final  tying  of  the  knots.  Here  was 
a  crucial  moment  when  the  most  minute  account  of 
the  experiment  should  have  been  made.  (9)  He  does 
not  say  when  the  account  of  the  experiment  was  writ- 
ten. To  give  it  value  it  should  have  been  from  notes 
made  on  the  occasion  and  written  out  immediately 
afterward.  (10)  Though  very  careful  to  give  the 
dates  on  which  the  cords  were  prepared,  no  care  is 
taken  to  tell  us  when  or  on  what  dates  the  experiment 
was  performed.  (H)  We  are  not  told  whether  Slade 
touched  or  examined  the  cord  in  his  own  hands  or 
not.      (1^)    No   indication   is   given   regarding   the 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    237 

chances  that  Slade  may  have  had  to  examine  the 
friend's  cord  and  to  be  prepared  for  a  reproduction 
of  ZoUner's. 

Any  one  of  the  last  eleven  defects  in  the  account 
of  this  experiment  is  sufficient  to  nullify  its  scientific 
character,  and  much  the  same  verdict  can  be  given 
against  Hare's  experiments,  which,  in  fact,  were  not 
so  good  as  Zollner's.  If  these  students  of  the  prob- 
lem had  been  acquainted  with  psychology  and  the 
many  pitfalls  in  such  phenomena,  they  would  have 
been  careful  to  provide  against  their  fall.  But  noth- 
ing save  an  unwarranted  confidence  in  the  experi- 
ments of  physicists  in  a  field  for  which  they  are  not 
equipped  at  all  will  explain  the  influence  of  their 
accounts,  and  we  have  to  educate  the  public  still  in 
the  fundamental  weaknesses  of  such  instances.  They 
are  summarized  in  malobservation  and  defective 
memory,  with  consequent  failures  in  detailed  accounts 
of  the  facts.  The  malobservation  is  provable  in  this 
case,  though  defective  memory  is  not,  but  we  are 
bound  to  suspect  it  under  the  circumstances  because 
of  the  lack  of  data  to  exclude  it.  At  least  it  is  so 
possible  that  we  must  demand  security  against  the 
suspicion  of  it  in  order  to  respect  the  account  more 
than  we  do. 

But  the  defender  of  Zollner  will  say  that,  whatever 
the  objections  to  the  cord  experiment,  we  cannot  ex- 
plain that  of  putting  wooden  rings  on  the  foot  of 
a  table  standing  some  distance  off  and  with  another 
table  between  it  and  the  man  holding  the  cord  on 
which  the  rings  are  fastened.  But  if  the  reader  will 
look  up  the  account  he  will  find  it  far  more  defective 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

in  details  than  that  of  the  knot-tjing.  Zollner  gives 
no  adequate  account  of  it  whatever.  We  do  not  know 
how  it  began,  what  the  history  of  the  table  was,  what 
Slade  did  while  the  experiment  was  going  on,  how 
and  when  the  rings  were  prepared,  what  opportuni- 
ties Slade  had  or  did  not  have  to  have  similar  ones 
prepared  and  previously  placed  on  the  chair-leg,  etc. 
There  is  in  fact  practically  nothing  but  the  result 
to  convince  the  reader  of  the  story,  and  this  as- 
sumes confidence  in  Zollner's  judgment  and  abilities 
to  protect  himself  against  fraud.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence whatever  in  his  account  that  he  did  so  protect 
himself. 

What  readers  of  such  narratives  constantly  forget 
is  the  simple  fact  that  their  reading  depends  on 
forming  a  definite  conception  of  events  as  they  are 
described,  and  we  forget  that  incompleteness  of  the 
account  prevents  us  from  forming  a  true  conception 
of  the  facts.  In  other  words,  the  psychological  con- 
tinua  may  not  correspond  to  the  physical  continua 
in  the  events,  and  yet  we  are  forced  from  the  very 
narrative  to  assume  them  to  be  the  same.  Our  psy- 
chological continua  consist  of  the  conceptions  which 
the  narrative  carries:  the  physical  continua  con- 
sist of  events  which  may  either  not  be  seen  by  the 
observer  at  all  or  may  not  be  described  when  they 
are  seen.  Hence  we  have  to  be  careful  about  accept- 
ing any  story,  especially  stories  about  unusual 
events,  as  accurately  representative  of  the  facts. 
Careful  study  of  details  for  omissions  or  for  time 
and  intellectual  chasms  should  always  be  made,  and 
it   will   often   reveal   imperfections   that   throw   sus- 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    239 

picion  on  reports  or  make  them  incompletely  eviden- 
tial of  the  claims  set  up  for  them.  This  is  perfectly 
clear  in  the  account  of  Zollner  as  quoted,  and  it  either 
vitiates  his  other  incidents,  which  I  have  no  space  to 
examine,  or  it  suggests  skeptical  caution  in  accepting 
them. 

One  of  the  best  papers  on  the  problem  psychologi- 
cally of  these  physical  phenomena  is  one  by  Dr. 
Richard  Hodgson  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  (Vol.  IV).  It  concerns 
"  Malobservation  and  Lapse  of  Memory,"  and  fol- 
lowed an  able  article  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  on  the  physi- 
cal phenomena  of  Spiritualism.  It  was  found  that 
most  people  had  such  confidence  in  their  powers  of 
observation  and  memory  that  it  was  necessary  to  per- 
form some  experiments  showing  that  this  confidence 
might  be  mistaken.  The  consequence  was  an  extensive 
system  of  such  experiments  consisting  of  slate-writing 
performances  on  which  various  people  were  to  report 
without  being  told  the  object  of  them.  The  result 
vindicated  the  judgment  of  Dr.  Hodgson  and  his 
coadjutors  in  the  work  and  proved  that  only  expert 
observers  can  be  trusted  to  give  an  adequate  account 
of  what  occurs  on  such  occasions.  One  incident  which 
Dr.  Hodgson  tells  and  which  was  an  experience  that 
induced  him  to  institute  the  experiments  was  the 
following.  He  describes  what  he  witnessed  in  India 
in  connection  with  a  Hindu  juggler  and  an  English 
officer. 

"  The  juggler  was  sitting  upon  the  ground  im- 
mediately in  front  of  the  hotel,  with  his  feet  crossed. 
Two  small  carved  wooden  figures  were  resting  on  the 


240    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ground,  about  two  feet  distant  from  the  juggler. 
Some  coins  were  also  lying  on  the  ground  near  the  fig- 
ures. The  juggler  began  talking  to  the  figures,  which 
moved  at  intervals,  bowing,  '  kissing,'  and  bumping 
against  each  other.  The  coins  also  began  to  move,  and 
one  of  them  apparently  sprang  from  the  ground  and 
struck  one  of  the  figures.  An  officer  and  his  wife, 
who  had  but  recently  arrived  at  the  hotel,  were  spec- 
tators with  myself,  and  we  stood  probably  within  two 
yards'  distance  of  the  juggler.  I  knew  how  the  trick 
was  performed ;  they  did  not  know.  The  officer  drew 
a  coin  from  his  pocket,  and  asked  the  juggler  if  this 
coin  would  also  jump.  The  juggler  replied  in  the 
affirmative,  and  the  coin  was  then  placed  near  the 
others  on  the  ground,  after  which  it  betrayed  the 
same  propensity  to  gymnastic  feats  as  the  juggler's 
own  coins.  Two  or  three  other  travellers  were  present 
at  the  dinner  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  conversation  the  officer  described 
the  marvellous  trick  which  he  had  witnessed  in  the 
afternoon.  Referring  to  the  movements  of  the  coin, 
he  said  that  he  had  taken  a  coin  from  his  own  pocket 
and  placed  it  on  the  ground  himself,  yet  that  this 
coin  had  indulged  in  the  same  freaks  as  the  other 
coins.  His  wife  ventured  to  suggest  that  the  juggler 
had  taken  the  coin  and  placed  it  on  the  ground,  but 
the  officer  was  emphatic  in  repeating  his  statement, 
and  appealed  to  me  for  confirmation.  He  was,  how- 
ever, mistaken.  I  had  watched  the  transaction  with 
special  curiosity,  as  I  knew  what  was  necessary  for 
the  performance  of  the  trick.  The  officer  had  ap- 
parently intended  to  place  the  coin  upon  the  ground 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    Ml 

himself,  but  as  he  was  doing  so,  the  juggler  leant 
slightly  forward,  dexterously,  and  in  a  most  unob- 
trusive manner,  received  the  coin  from  the  fingers 
of  the  officer  as  the  latter  was  stooping  down,  and  laid 
it  close  to  the  others.  If  the  juggler  had  not  thus 
taken  the  coin,  but  had  allowed  the  officer  himself 
to  place  it  on  the  ground,  the  trick,  as  actually  per- 
formed, would  have  been  frustrated." 

In  more  or  less  extenuation  of  the  officer's  liability 
to  malobservation  and  lapse  of  memory.  Dr.  Hodg- 
son goes  on  to  say  regarding  the  incident  what  it  is 
important  always  to  remember. 

"  Now  I  think  it  highly  improbable  that  the  move- 
ment of  the  juggler  entirely  escaped  the  perception 
of  the  officer  —  highly  improbable,  that  is  to  say, 
that  the  officer  was  absolutely  unaware  of  the  jug- 
gler's action  at  the  moment  of  its  happening;  but  I 
suppose  that,  although  an  impression  was  made  upon 
his  consciousness,  it  was  so  slight  as  to  be  speedily 
effaced  by  the  officer's  imagination  of  himself  as 
stooping  and  placing  the  coin  upon  the  ground.  The 
officer,  I  may  say,  had  obtained  no  insight  into  the 
modus  operandi  of  the  trick,  and  his  fundamental 
misrepresentation  of  the  only  patent  occurrence  that 
might  have  given  him  the  clue  to  its  performance  de- 
barred him  completely  from  afterward,  in  reflection, 
arriving  at  any  explanation.  Just  similarly,  many 
an  honest  witness  may  have  described  himself  as  hav- 
ing placed  one  slate  upon  another  at  a  sitting  with 
a  *  medium,'  whereas  it  was  the  medium  who  did  so, 
and  who  possibly  effected  at  the  same  time  one  or  two 
other  operations  altogether  unnoticed  by  the  witness." 


242   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

I  cannot  quote  from  the  reports  of  people  who  wit- 
nessed the  slate-writing  of  Mr.  Davey,  as  they 
are  too  elaborate  and  detailed  to  do  so.  But  if 
readers  of  this  brief  account  will  go  to  the  volume 
mentioned  they  will  find  overwhelming  evidence  that 
lay  reports  not  involving  previous  knowledge  of  the 
trick  cannot  be  used  for  proof  of  the  "  supernatural  " 
or  supernormal,  but  at  most  only  as  reason  for  care- 
ful investigation.  There  is  no  use  to  indulge  in  pride 
about  the  matter.  This  will  only  help  to  keep  us  in 
illusion  on  such  things.  The  sooner  we  all  admit  that 
there  is  much  that  we  are  not  able  to  detect  or  ob- 
serve, the  better  are  we  protected  against  illusion. 
This  ought  to  be  apparent  to  any  one  who  has  wit- 
nessed the  performances  of  Hermann  and  Keller.  We 
never  suppose  for  an  instant  in  such  cases  that  we 
are  witnessing  miracles.  We  know  that  they  are 
tricks,  and  we  are  generally  quite  content  to  admit 
our  inability  to  see  through  them.  Why  should  we 
not  admit  the  same  frailties  in  performances  which 
profess  to  be  ordinarily  inexplicable.?  Why  should 
we  pride  ourselves  in  our  powers  when  the  perform- 
ance claims  to  be  "  supernatural,"  and  have  no  such 
pride  when  it  is  a  juggler's  trick.'*  We  cannot  expect, 
without  previous  training  and  experience,  to  have 
any  more  knowledge  of  the  one  than  the  other,  and 
if  we  would  only  admit  this  frankly  we  might  be  will- 
ing to  rely  upon  the  judgment  of  experts  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  such  things.  We  should  be  less  fre- 
quently fooled  if  we  did  this  than  when  we  try  the 
investigation  for  ourselves.  In  some  instances,  as 
I  have  already  intimated,  it  is  impossible  for   any 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC  PHENOMENA    24B 

one  to  observe  the  crucial  facts  upon  which  an  ex- 
planation rests,  as  the  performer  conceals  them  from 
us.  No  skill  at  observation  will  serve  in  such  cir- 
cumstances. The  observer  needs  previous  knowledge 
of  the  phenomena  to  enable  him  to  observe  when  he 
cannot  observe  the  facts. 

I  shall  not  assume  an  attitude  of  contempt  or  ridi- 
cule against  reports  of  physical  phenomena  nor 
against  the  reality  of  them.  I  shall  not  deny  the 
possibility  of  extraordinary  physical  phenomena.  For 
all  that  I  know  there  may  be  such,  but  I  have  not  had 
any  personal  experiences  of  such,  and  am  not  entitled 
to  endorse  them  until  I  do.  All  such  phenomena  that 
I  have  witnessed  have  either  been  explicable  by  trick- 
ery or  were  proved  to  be  such  by  actual  observations. 
One  celebrated  slate-writer,  often  quoted  to  me,  was 
the  subject  of  two  experiments  with  me,  and  in  the 
very  first  experiment  I  discovered  him  writing  on  a 
slate  below  the  edge  of  the  table,  and  in  other  in- 
stances he  exchanged  slates  so  dexterously  that,  but 
for  my  trained  habits  of  observation,  I  should  not 
have  seen  the  incidents  that  made  skepticism  impera- 
tive, and  that  proved  the  natural  explanation  of  the 
facts. 

But  in  spite  of  my  experience  I  shall  not  take  an 
attitude  of  denial  in  such  things.  I  shall  admit  that 
it  is  only  a  matter  of  adequate  evidence  to  prove  the 
claims  of  physical  phenomena,  and  so  I  shift  upon 
the  narrator  the  burden  of  proof  that  they  occur.  I 
have,  too,  some  sense  of  humor  about  this  situation. 
I  have  myself  asked  the  scientific  world  to  listen  to 
certain  extraordinary  phenomena  in  psychology,  and 


«44    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

I  am  not  going  to  belie  the  principles  involved  in 
this  demand  and  show  a  dogmatic  denial  of  physical 
phenomena.  I  shall  listen  as  patiently  to  accounts 
of  them  as  I  ask  scientists  to  listen  to  the  psychologi- 
cal phenomena  that  demand  explanation.  I  shall  not 
repeat  their  folly  and  neglect.  But  this  attitude  does 
not  absolve  me  from  the  duty  to  make  the  credentials 
of  my  belief  as  severe  as  the  nature  of  the  phenomena 
requires,  and  no  one  should  expect  or  demand  of  me 
anything  but  the  most  careful  and  cautious  limita- 
tions under  which  conviction  is  to  be  established. 

But,  whatever  the  attitude  which  I  shall  take  re- 
garding physical  phenomena,  I  must  insist  that  they 
have  certain  most  important  defects  on  any  theory  of 
their  character  that  relegates  them  to  a  secondary 
place  in  the  investigation  of  the  claims  of  Spiritual- 
ism. The  first  of  these  defects  is  that  they  are  much 
the  most  difficult  of  the  phenomena  to  validate.  The 
second  is  that  they  are  much  less  frequent  than  the 
psychological  phenomena  having  a  scientific  interest. 
The  third  is  that  they  occur  under  circumstances  in 
most  instances  that  associate  them  with  the  ordinary 
tricks  of  jugglers.  These  three  considerations  are 
matters  of  great  weight  in  any  attempt  to  study  such 
phenomena.  I  may  add  also  what  I  have  already 
indicated,  namely,  that  they  are  quite  irrelevant  of 
themselves  to  prove  the  claims  of  the  spiritualist  even 
on  the  supposition  that  they  are  genuine.  There  must 
be  the  accompaniment  of  phenomena  illustrating  the 
personal  identity  of  deceased  persons  to  effect  this 
result,  and  if  these  phenomena  can  be  obtained  with- 
out a  resort  to  methods  associated  with  prestidigita- 


PSEUDO  -  SPIRITISTIC   PHENOMENA    M5 

tion,  and  under  conditions  adequate  to  the  proof  of 
genuineness,  we  should  most  naturally  depend  upon 
the  simpler  process.  Hence,  while  the  physical  phe- 
nomena require  investigation,  and  should  be  exam- 
ined with  an  open  mind,  we  should  neglect  the  really 
crucial  facts  if  we  risked  our  case  upon  any  such 
credentials,  and  while  I  shaU  listen  with  patience  and 
unbiassed  mind  to  any  accounts  of  such  phenomena, 
I  must  be  indulged  a  continued  skepticism  regarding 
them,  until  they  have  accumulated  in  such  abundance 
as  to  accord  with  the  quantitative  standards  of  scien- 
tific method.  Hitherto,  the  very  best  records  of  such 
real  or  alleged  facts  have  been  so  defective,  and 
human  testimony  so  unreliable  that  suspense  of  judg- 
ment is  still  an  imperative  duty.  The  actual  outcome 
of  many  experiments  by  qualified  observers  has  been 
such  that  strong  contempt  for  claims  regarding 
physical  phenomena  may  be  indulged  with  some 
excuse,  especially  by  those  who  are  familiar  with 
scientific  knowledge.  But  I  shall  not  indulge  that 
temper  of  mind.  I  have  heard  narratives  which, 
though  I  remain  uncertain  as  to  the  explanation,  I 
am  certain  that  further  investigation  is  necessary 
for  any  conclusion,  even  for  that  of  trickery,  and  as 
the  phenomena  are  perennial,  and  in  this  age  of  ex- 
pectation so  liable  to  produce  illusion  if  they  are  not 
general,  I  think  there  is  the  same  reason  for  patient 
examination  of  them  without  regard  to  expected  or 
unexpected  conclusions. 


CHAPTER    IX 

SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION    AND    SECONDARY    PERSONALITY 

There  is  another  type  of  phenomena,  and  this  time 
they  are  psychological  in  their  character,  that  often 
claim  to  be  spiritistic  in  their  origin.  They  were  little 
known  until  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  Hints 
of  their  nature  were  noted  before  this  date,  but  little 
systematic  knowledge  of  them  was  accepted  until  com- 
paratively recent  times.  In  their  more  highly  organ- 
ized form  they  have  been  denominated  "  secondary 
personality."  But  as  this  more  highly  developed  form 
of  the  phenomena  is  preceded  by  various  unconscious 
or  subconscious  mental  phenomena,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  approach  the  discussion  of  secondary  personality 
through  these.  It  will  be  best,  however,  to  clearly 
define  what  we  mean  by  secondary  personality,  and 
to  do  this  it  will  be  necessary  to  define  and  explain 
what  we  mean  by  personality  in  general  and  psycho- 
logical usage. 

Many  people  confuse  the  meanings  of  the  terms 
"  person "  and  "  personality,"  assuming  that  they 
mean  substantially  the  same  thing.  This  is  in  fact 
not  the  case.  They  originally  had  the  same  etymo- 
logical import,  but  the  exigencies  of  intellectual  and 
philosophical    development    gave   them    a    somewhat 

246 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  247 

different  meaning.  It  is  lack  of  familiarity  with  this 
development  that  leads  to  the  confusion  of  these  terms. 
I  shall  briefly  state  the  history  of  the  terms,  and  then 
define  their  import  for  present  thought. 

"  Person  "  is  from  the  Latin  "  persona,''^  a  mask 
used  in  the  theatres  to  represent  an  impersonation. 
Then  it  came  to  denote  the  character  so  represented, 
and  finally  to  denote  a  human  being,  which  is  its 
meaning  to-day.  The  Greek  "Prosopon"  (YipoacoTrov) 
at  first  denoted  the  face  or  visage,  and  later  became 
the  term  for  mask,  as  "  persona  "  in  Latin.  When 
the  term  came  to  denote  a  human  being  it  did  so 
according  to  the  intellectual  interests  served  by  it. 
In  social  and  political  matters  it  denoted  the  whole 
living  being,  physical  and  mental,  and  in  law  it  so 
applies  still.  In  theology  and  philosophy  it  often 
meant  the  subject  of  consciousness  and  abstracted 
from  the  body.  But  the  term  as  denoting  this  sub- 
ject was  adjustable  to  any  philosophy,  and  so  with 
the  materialist  would  mean  the  physical  organism 
associated  with  its  functions.  With  the  opposite 
school  it  would  be  more  or  less  identical  with  the  soul, 
though  not  setting  aside  its  common  application  to 
the  organism  as  well.  But  in  all  philosophic  schools 
"  person  "  rather  implied  some  sort  of  unity  or  single- 
ness of  the  thing  which  manifested  functions.  This 
unity  or  singleness  may  be  nothing  more  than  space- 
wholeness,  or  apparent  oneness  of  the  subject,  though 
analysis  might  show  it  composed  of  elements.  But 
physically  it  was  one  thing,  and  philosophically  and 
theologically  it  came  to  denote  a  simple  subject, 
though  there  were  differences  of  opinion  about  even 


248    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

this.  Through  all  phases  of  belief,  however,  onenesSy 
in  so  far  as  space-occupation  was  concerned,  was  the 
implication  of  the  term. 

The  term  "  personality  "  is  what  we  call  an  abstract 
term.  It  is  derived  from  the  idea  of  a  quality  de- 
scribing a  person,  and  so  denotes  what  characterizes 
a  person.  In  philosophy  this  characteristic  was  con- 
sciousness, or  the  stream  of  consciousness  which  was 
supposed  to  attest  the  need  of  a  soul  to  explain  it. 
But  in  the  course  of  its  development  it  assumed  three 
rather  distinct  meanings,  though  they  are  closely 
related  to  each  other.  (1)  It  was  often  used  as  syn- 
onymous with  "  person."  (2)  It  is  often  used  to  de- 
note the  group  of  mental  states  which  constitute  our 
normal  mental  activity,  and  which  indicate  that  we  are 
"  persons  "  rather  than  machines.  (3)  It  often  de- 
notes those  peculiar  characteristics  by  which  we  dis- 
tinguish one  "  person "  from  another.  The  true 
meaning  which  it  has  for  psychology  is  the  second, 
at  least  when  dealing  with  the  problem  affecting  this 
chapter. 

The  confusion  of  most  people  about  the  term  comes 
from  its  application  in  "  secondary  personality," 
which  seems  to  them  to  imply  a  second  person  in  con- 
nection with  the  same  physical  organism,  and  hence 
they  actually  often  suppose  that  the  psychologist 
means  to  recognize  the  presence  of  another  and  in- 
dependent "  person  "  in  connection  with  certain  phe- 
nomena, and  then  wonder  why  we  do  not  call  it  spirit ! 
The  fact  is  that  the  psychologist  uses  the  term  to 
eliminate  the  supposition  of  an  independent  "  per- 
son "   in   connection   with   the   assumed   phenomena. 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  249 

The  distinction  between  "  primary  "  and  "  secondary 
personality  "  was  adopted  to  distinguish  between  cer- 
tain normal  mental  activities  and  certain  abnormal 
activities  which  simulated  the  presence  and  influence 
of  another  "  person  "  than  the  one  properly  associated 
with  a  given  organism.  With  the  confusion  between 
"  person  "  and  "  personality  "  it  was  natural  to  sup- 
pose that  "  secondary  personality  "  implied  another 
"  person,"  and  as  this  was  not  physical  the  meaning 
was  not  clear.  But  this  can  be  explained,  and  the 
illusion  about  it  easily  removed. 

Without  regard  to  the  distinction  between  "  pri- 
mary "  and  "  secondary,"  personality  in  psychology 
denotes  a  stream  of  consciousness  kept  continuous, 
or  in  some  way  associated  as  a  whole  in  its  units,  by 
memory.  We  know  it  as  our  normal  consciousness 
and  its  associated  states  constituting  a  stream,  so  to 
speak.  Memory  is  the  fact  which  holds  these  states 
together  and  enables  us  to  think  of  ourselves  as  one 
subject  or  being.  "  Personality  "  is  thus  a  group 
of  mental  states  or  experiences  which  constitute  a 
unity  of  some  kind  and  is  what  we  imply  by  a  "  per- 
son," psychologically  speaking.  But  certain  facts 
have  been  observed  in  mental  experience  which  seem 
to  show  the  existence  of  activities  that  are  not  known 
or  remembered  by  this  normal  consciousness,  and  when 
this  independent  group  of  mental  states  assumes  the 
semblance  of  another  "  person,"  we  call  it  "  second- 
ary personality,"  to  denote  both  that  it  belongs  to  the 
same  "  person  "  or  organism  as  the  normal  or  pri- 
mary consciousness  and  that  it  simulates  the  reality  of 
an  independent  "  person."     But,  it  is  only  a  sepa- 


250    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

rate  group  of  mental  states  not  connected  by  mem- 
ory with  the  primary  personality,  though  it  may 
show  a  memory  of  its  own.  The  important  point 
in  the  definition  of  it,  however,  is  its  relation  to  the 
same  subject  or  organism  as  the  primary  personality, 
and  its  apparent  independence.  It  may  exhibit  many 
or  all  the  traits  of  another  "  person "  or  human 
being  than  the  one  exhibited  by  the  primary  person- 
ality, and  yet  be  a  functional  activity  of  this  same 
subject  or  "  person."  In  this  way  the  term  denotes 
a  class  of  phenomena  which  exclude  the  spiritistic 
interpretation  instead  of  implying  it. 

As  the  primary  personality  is  what  we  recognize 
as  the  normal  consciousness,  we  have  to  regard  the 
secondary  personality  as  unconscious.  The  mental 
activity  in  secondary  personality  may  be  essentially 
like  that  of  the  primary  personality,  and  may  even 
be  called  a  consciousness,  but  owing  to  the  fact  that 
it  has  no  necessary  memory  connection  with  the  pri- 
mary personality  or  consciousness,  it  must  be  re- 
garded, relatively  at  least,  as  unconscious.  This  way 
of  viewing  it,  however,  tends  to  produce  confusion 
in  our  conception  of  it.  To  say  that  it  is  essentially 
like  the  primary  consciousness,  and  yet  to  refuse 
it  the  name  of  consciousness,  is  to  make  it  appear  that 
it  should  be  given  the  name  of  another  consciousness, 
and  this  is  often  done  in  the  term  "  subliminal  con- 
sciousness," thus  distinguishing  the  primary  as  the 
supraliminal  consciousness.  This  is  all  very  well 
when  we  are  using  the  term  "  consciousness  "  merely 
as  an  abstract  term  for  mental  activity  in  general, 
but  in  so  using  it  we  do  not  identify  it  with  the  ordi- 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  251 

nary  conception  of  the  term,  which  involves  normal 
memory  of  experience.  But  whether  we  shall  use 
the  term  in  its  narrower  or  wider  import  will  not 
affect  the  actual  distinction  between  primary  and 
secondary  personality  as  determined  by  the  absence 
of  the  primary  memory  of  the  secondary  states,  and 
sometimes  or  always  vice  versa.  The  main  point  is 
not  what  we  shall  call  it,  but  how  we  shall  conceive 
its  relation  to  the  primary  personality,  and  that  is, 
one  in  which  we  are  not  normally  conscious  of  the 
events  occurring  in  subliminal  states.  This  fact  en- 
ables us  to  approach  the  functional  activities  of  sec- 
ondary personality  through  our  ordinarily  uncon- 
scious action  or  what  is  sometimes  called  subconscious 
phenomena.  Secondary  personality  is  but  a  more 
highly  organized  system  of  subliminal  events,  while 
the  ordinary  subconscious  activities  are  less  imitative 
of  independent  personality,  if  they  do  it  at  all,  or  are 
in  harmony  with  the  functions  of  the  normal  con- 
sciousness, while  secondary  personality  is  dissociated 
from  it,  and  so  exhibits  the  systematic  action  of  dis- 
sociation where  the  normally  subconscious  functions 
are  associated  with  the  primary  personality.  They 
afford,  however,  the  proper  means  of  approach  to 
the  dissociated  phenomena  of  secondary  personality. 
There  is  a  whole  group  of  unconscious  functions 
which  we  treat  as  physiological  and  not  mental.  They 
are  such  as  digestion,  circulation,  secretion,  and  the 
reflexes.  With  these  we  have  nothing  to  do  in  illus- 
trating what  we  mean  by  unconscious  mental  actions 
terminating  in  the  organization  of  secondary  per- 
sonality.    In  approaching  these  secondary  phenom- 


^52    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ena  we  must  begin  with  those  functions  which  began 
in  acts  of  normal  consciousness  and  finally  developed 
into  unconscious  or  involuntary  actions. 

The  first  simple  illustration  of  such  actions  is  that 
of  walking  or  using  the  limbs,  with  the  development 
of  which  we  are  all  familiar.  In  infancy,  for  in- 
stance, we  have  to  learn  to  walk  by  hard  work.  The 
first  eff'orts  in  this  direction  require  the  most  care- 
ful attention  and  deliberate  volitions.  The  irregular 
motor  action  of  the  child  has  to  be  overcome  by  the 
slow  and  hardly  won  control  of  the  muscles  in  a  de- 
sired direction.  Gradually  the  child  learns  to  do 
this  more  easily,  and  finally  the  act  becomes  appar- 
ently involuntary,  until  we  can  control  our  walking 
without  thinking  about  it.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
hands  or  other  muscular  activities.  All  of  them  are 
gradually  learned  and  become  unconscious,  although 
they  are  capable  of  being  initiated  or  interrupted  at 
will  at  any  time  in  our  normal  condition,  showing 
that  the  relation  of  consciousness  to  them  is  not 
wholly  lost  in  these  circumstances.  But  they  may  be 
carried  on  by  subliminal  activities  after  the  voluntary 
and  deliberate  influence  of  consciousness  has  been 
withdrawn.  If  the  influence  of  normal  consciousness 
were  at  any  time  dissociated  from  these  automatic 
results  of  habit,  we  should  discover  a  discoordinated 
set  of  actions  which  would  be  referred  to  subliminal 
action  entirely,  and  so  be  regarded  as  abnormal.  We 
refer  these  normally  unconscious  acts  to  habit,  and 
this  can  mean  only  that  the  system  acquires  automatic 
tendencies  to  act  along  the  lines  of  frequent  volun- 
tary action,  and  in  proportion  as  the  actions  become 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  253 

unconscious  they  represent  agencies  bordering  on 
what  we  call  secondary  personality;  and  if  they 
become,  as  they  perhaps  do  at  times,  dissociated  from 
the  functions  of  the  normal  consciousness,  they  take 
on  the  systematic  character  of  secondary  personality. 

The  acts  of  reading,  writing,  and  playing  music 
are  the  same  as  walking,  and  become  automatic  with 
experience.  They  are,  of  course,  not  purely  auto- 
matic in  the  sense  of  being  wholly  unrelated  to  normal 
consciousness,  but  are  not  directed  deliberately  by  the 
will.  They  are  all  associated  with  the  normal  or 
primary  personality,  though  not  directly  and  wholly 
controlled  by  it.  If  they  became  dissociated  from 
this  they  would  assume  the  character  of  another  per- 
sonality. 

In  the  mental  life,  as  distinct  from  its  expression 
in  muscular  actions,  the  best  illustration  of  subcon- 
scious activity  is  in  Reproduction  or  Association. 
Reproduction  we  found  in  an  earlier  chapter  to  be 
the  recalling  of  past  events  to  consciousness.  This 
act  is  always  more  or  less  subconscious,  and  is  per- 
haps never  a  directly  conscious  act,  though  deliberate 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  conscious  mind  may  have 
an  influence  upon  the  result.  But  the  act  of  associa- 
ti\e  recall  is  subliminal,  because  it  has  first  to  do  its 
work  before  the  mind  becomes  conscious  exactly  of 
what  it  recalls.  We  may  have  a  part  of  the  past 
experience  recalled,  and  then  endeavor  to  recall  more 
of  it,  aware  that  we  have  not  reproduced  the  whole 
of  it.  But  still  we  have  to  rely  upon  subconscious 
action  to  effect  the  specific  recall.  The  fact,  however, 
that  it  is  subliminal  is  evident  from  two  types  of 


254    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

experience.  The  first  is  in  the  sudden  recall  of  past 
events  after  having  failed  to  voluntarily  recall  them, 
and  the  second  is  the  sporadic  and  unconscious  re- 
call of  the  past  while  thinking  about  things  wholly 
unconnected  with  the  present  state  of  consciousness. 
The  two  phenomena  represent  the  same  law  of  ac- 
tion, though  one  of  them  does  not  involve  any  rela- 
tion to  a  previous  intention.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
the  phenomenon  of  trying  to  recall  some  name  or 
event  and  finding  ourselves  unable  to  do  it.  After 
various  trials  we  give  it  up,  and  then  the  name  or 
event  will  suddenly  appear  in  consciousness  without 
any  warning  or  expectation,  at  a  moment  when  we 
are  not  thinking  about  it.  The  mind  has  subcon- 
sciously been  in  pursuit  of  the  desired  incident,  and 
finally  succeeds  in  ehciting  it.  The  second  class  to 
which  I  referred  represents  recall  due  to  some  asso- 
ciated state  of  the  mind  or  body  not  noticed  at  the 
time.  This  is  a  very  frequent  phenomenon.  For 
instance,  we  may  be  occupied  with  some  work  and 
a  noise  may  occur  and  some  memory  will  be  evoked 
that  is  wholly  unrelated  to  the  thing  we  are  think- 
ing about.  I  remember  once  that  a  fine  spring  zephyr 
recalled  a  scene  that  I  had  witnessed  a  year  before, 
though  at  the  time  of  the  recall  I  was  occupied  in 
reading  a  novel  wholly  unrelated  to  what  I  recalled. 
Any  accidental  emotion  or  sensation  may  divert  the 
mind  for  a  moment  from  the  present  state  and  re- 
produce past  events  to  interrupt  the  main  thread  of 
consciousness.  All  this  is  subliminal  and  does  not 
involve  the  voluntary  effort  of  the  subject. 

Another  illustration  is  a  little  different.     In  walk- 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  ^55 

ing  we  are  as  much  guided  by  what  we  do  not 
specifically  notice  as  we  are  by  the  objects  that  we 
consciously  observe.  In  fact,  we  may  be  so  occupied 
with  our  thoughts  that  we  do  not  consciously  notice 
objects  at  all.  That  is,  we  may  not  apperceive  them 
or  directly  think  about  them.  Yet  we  may  sufficiently 
regard  them  to  avoid  them.  To  do  this  we  must 
have  our  life  adjusted  to  many  things  which  we  do 
not  directly  will  or  observe.  They  produce  their 
effect  on  the  mind,  but  that  effect  is  not  a  conscious 
one.  That  they  have  an  influence  is  apparent  if  we 
close  our  eyes  at  any  time  that  we  are  reflecting  and 
walking  about.  The  ordinary  reflexes  by  which  our 
movements  are  guided  are  thus  cut  off^. 

All  these  instances  are  such  as  are  articulated  with 
the  normal  acts  of  the  mind,  and  reflect  a  definite 
adjustment  of  the  various  functions  of  the  mind  and 
body  to  each  other.  In  them  facts  and  experience 
seem  properly  associated.  But  I  come  next  to  a  type 
of  actions  which  represent  the  rise  of  dissociated 
functions.  I  have  shown  in  an  earlier  chapter  that 
the  phenomena  of  dissociation  are  as  frequent  as 
those  of  association,  and  in  their  proper  relations  are 
just  as  necessary  as  the  latter.  We  forget  many 
things  because  they  have  no  direct  importance  for 
the  main  object  of  our  thoughts  and  plans.  Things 
that  we  do  not  directly  notice  and  hold  in  attention 
are  easily  forgotten.  The  regulation  of  our  move- 
ments is  handed  over  to  functions  that  tend  to  lose 
their  conscious  connection  with  our  present  thoughts 
and  interests.  But  in  the  normal  state  the  connec- 
tion is  easily  established  again.     When  the  abnormal 


256   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

arises  the  functions  may  act  separately  and  with 
apparent  reference  to  different  ends.  Thus  in  ab- 
sent-mindedness we  will  do  things  which  we  had  no 
previous  intention  of  doing,  and  they  are  done  under 
some  sort  of  suggestion.  A  thought  may  occur  to 
us,  recalled  unconsciously,  and  being  in  a  more  or 
less  automatic  condition,  we  at  once  perform  the  act 
involved,  and  either  know  nothing  about  it  or  do  not 
observe  it  until  it  has  been  done.  The  best  illustra- 
tion, however,  is  found  in  such  movements  as  are  insti- 
gated by  sensory  impressions  which  we  do  not  notice 
at  the  time  but  which  come  to  consciousness  the  mo- 
ment the  acts  take  place.  Thus  I  often  resolve  to  do  a 
certain  thing,  and  then  it  occurs  that  I  must  first  do 
something  else.  I  start  to  do  this  second  thing  and 
suddenly  find  myself  doing  the  first.  This  is  a  very 
frequent  occurrence.  The  effect  of  the  previous 
thought  is  not  nullified  by  the  second  one,  and  it  lin- 
gers in  the  subUminal  state  to  emerge  in  an  automatic 
action. 

The  dissociation  becomes  more  complete  in  abnor- 
mal phenomena.  One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  it 
is  found  in  hysteria  and  other  neuraesthenic  difficul- 
ties. It  is  connected  with  the  limitation  of  the  field  of 
vision.  In  patients  of  the  type  indicated  the  field  of 
vision  often  becomes  so  limited  that  objects  which 
would  ordinarily  be  seen  in  the  indirect  field  are  not 
seen  at  all.  Thus  a  pencil  off  at  one  side  will  not  be 
seen  when  normally  it  would  be  clearly  visible.  The 
extent  of  this  limitation  varies  much.  In  some  only  a 
small  portion  of  the  retina  is  sensitive  to  visible 
stimuli.     But  the  interesting  fact  to  be  noted  is  that, 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  257 

if  the  person  be  asked  in  hypnosis  to  tell  what  he  saw 
in  this  indirect  field,  he  may  be  able  to  give  as  full  an 
account  of  it  as  if  he  had  seen  it  normally.  He  would 
say  normally  that  he  did  not  see  the  pencil  or  other 
object,  but  in  hypnosis  would  tell  that  he  had  seen  it, 
and  he  would  tell  this  without  suggestion,  merely  in 
response  to  the  request  to  say  what  he  saw.  A  similar 
phenomenon  occurs  in  connection  with  hypnosis.  We 
may  produce  anaesthesia  by  suggestion,  and  then  in- 
stitute a  series  of  sensory  impressions  upon  the  sen- 
sorium  and  the  subject  will  know  nothing  about  it, 
but  if  told  that  he  will  tell  all  about  it  after  awaken- 
ing he  will  give  a  full  account  of  it,  showing  that 
the  mind  has  taken  notice  of  the  facts  unconsciously. 
Let  me  give  some  illustrations  of  this  from  experi- 
ment. 

Dr.  Boris  Sidis  reports  a  case  in  which  a  hypnotic 
patient  was  told  a  number  of  things  under  hypnosis, 
such  as  that  she  would  not  see  him  when  her  eyes 
were  opened ;  that  she  is  a  child  of  two  years  of  age, 
etc.  A  hat  is  placed  on  his  head  and  she  sees  this 
hanging  in  the  air.  She  is  told  that  she  cannot  see 
his  spectacles,  but  when  they  are  moved  she  answers 
that  she  does  not  see  them,  though  she  moves  her 
eyes  as  the  spectacles  move.  Doctor  Sidis  holds  a 
newspaper  before  her  and  she  cannot  see  it  or  his 
hand,  but  when  his  finger  points  to  a  word  she  can 
pronounce  it.  This  she  does,  but  immediately  after- 
ward she  cannot  recall  the  words.  If  asked  to  re- 
call them  and  the  finger  points  to  the  words,  she 
repeats  them.  When  the  paper  is  removed  she  does 
not  know  what  she  has  said. 


X 


^58    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Now  comes  the  interesting  feature  of  this  case. 
*'  On  awakening  at  the  end  of  this  long  series  of 
experiments,  the  patient  had  no  recollection  of  what 
had  passed.  She  was  then  asked  to  shut  her  eyes, 
and  a  pen  was  given  her.  She  was  told  to  try  to 
recollect  what  occurred  when  asleep,  but  she  could 
not  remember  anything.  The  pen  Tneanwhile  wrote 
witlwwt  the  patienfs  knowledge  an  account  of  what 
had  occurred J*^ 

The  italics  are  my  own.  But  we  have  here  evi- 
dence that  the  impressions  were  actually  recorded 
and  were  accessible  to  automatic  writing,  though  the 
normal  consciousness  had  no  recollection  of  them. 
As  the  sensory  impression  was  not  apparently  per- 
ceived, we  naturally  expect  no  recall  of  the  facts,  but 
they  actually  are  recalled  and  show  traces  of  having 
been  subhminally  observed  and  subliminally  repro- 
duced. 

Doctor  White  reports  a  case  of  a  person  not  ac- 
customed to  drinking,  but  who  accidentally  drank 
too  much  on  one  occasion  and  had  amnesia,  or  inabil- 
ity to  remember  events,  for  three  hours.  That  is, 
after  recovery  of  normal  conditions  he  could  not  re- 
member what  he  had  done  during  these  three  hours. 
Under  hypnosis  he  told  the  whole  story,  and  it  was 
confirmed.  Here  again  the  sensory  impressions  were 
subliminally  perceived,  though  the  normal  conscious- 
ness was  not  aware  of  them.  The  functions  of  the 
mind  were  so  dissociated  that  while  one  was  occupied 
with  its  object  the  other  was  not  connecting  its  ex- 
perience with  the  first. 

Another  more  striking  case  by  Doctor  Sidis  and 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  S59 

Dr.  Morton  Prince  illustrates  the  phenomenon  in  a 
different  form.  It  was  a  case  of  producing  visual 
hallucinations  by  tactual  stimuli.  They  occurred  in 
a  hysterical  patient.  I  give  their  account  verbatim. 
They  were  investigating  anaesthesia. 

"  The  experiments  which  were  made  to  determine 
the  nature  of  the  anaesthesia  produced  interesting 
results.  These  experiments  are  of  a  well-known  class 
which  have  been  frequently  made  use  of  to  show  that 
anaesthesia  is  not  a  true  anaesthesia,  but  that  im- 
pressions from  the  anaesthetic  parts  which  seem  not 
to  be  felt  are  really  perceived  subconsciously. 

"  They  may  be  made  in  several  ways.  The  method 
we  made  use  of  consisted  in  producing  a  visual  hallu- 
cination whenever  the  anaesthetic  hand  was  touched. 
That  is  to  say,  if  the  anaesthesia  is  functional,  al- 
though the  subject  does  not  consciously  perceive  the 
tactile  impression,  he  sees  the  image  of  a  number 
which  corresponds  with  the  number  of  times  the 
hand  is  pricked  or  touched.  This  was  found  to  be 
the  result  in  this  case.  Whenever  the  hand  was 
pricked  a  certain  number  of  times  successively,  he 
always  saw  that  number  as  an  hallucination.  The 
number  was  always  correct,  and  showed  that  subcon- 
sciously the  pricks  must  have  been  felt. 

"  The  details  of  the  experiment  were  as  follows : 
The  anaesthetic  hand  was  placed  behind  a  screen  and 
the  patient  was  told  to  look  in  a  glass  of  water  and 
tell  what  he  saw  there.  Impressions  made  on  the 
anaesthetic  hand  gave  rise  to  visual  hallucinations 
symbolically  representing  the  sensory  stimuli.  Thus, 
for  example,  when  his  hand  was  touched,  very  lightly. 


260    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

five  times,  he  saw  the  figure  five  very  vividly,  and 
described  it  in  detail.  He  saw  the  number  written; 
it  looked  very  large;  and  he  saw  it  written  on  the 
back  of  a  hand. 

"  The  intensity  of  the  hallucination  was  very  well 
brought  out  when,  projecting  the  hallucinatory  hand 
on  a  screen  instead  of  in  the  water,  the  patient  out- 
lined it  with  a  pencil.  When  one  of  us  placed  his 
hand  on  the  screen  by  the  side  of  the  hallucinatory 
hand  and  the  patient  was  asked  to  tell  which  hand 
looked  more  real,  he  insisted  that  both  hands  looked 
equally  real,  except  that  the  hallucinatory  hand 
looked  a  little  farther  away." 

The  evidence  of  subconscious  impressions  is  over- 
whelming in  such  instances,  as  they  illustrate  the 
phenomena  of  hallucinations  which,  as  previously  ex- 
plained, are  due  to  secondary  stimuli.  We  might 
more  easily  dispute  the  real  anaesthesia,  if  the  subcon- 
scious image  had  been  in  the  field  of  touch,  but  it 
matters  not  what  we  say  or  think  about  the  tactual 
condition  of  the  sensorium,  the  conversion  of  the 
stimulus  into  a  visual  hallucination  shows  subliminal 
processes  of  some  kind,  while  the  assurance  of  anaes- 
thesia in  touch  doubly  indicates  this  subconscious 
action. 

Illustrations  of  this  kind  might  be  quoted  indef- 
initely, but  these  suffice  to  prove  the  fact  of  sublim- 
inal mental  action  and  to  illustrate  the  source  of 
secondary  personality  when  it  assumes  a  systematic 
or  organized  form.  The  instances  quoted  are  spo- 
radic illustrations,  and  do  not  show  developed  sec- 
ondary personality  in  any  form  to  simulate  a  real 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  ^61 

person.  They  indicate,  however,  the  dissociation  of 
functions  and  prepare  us  to  understand  the  same 
phenomena  in  a  more  highly  developed  form.  I  come 
now  to  instances  of  this  systematic  type  of  secondary 
personality  or  subliminal  action  where  we  find  the 
simulation  of  other  than  the  normal  person.  It  is 
in  this  last  class  of  phenomena  that  we  find  another 
type  of  pseudo-spiritistic  facts.  The  simulation  of 
other  than  the  normal  person,  however,  does  not 
always  take  the  form  of  alleged  spirits,  and  for  that 
reason  it  affords  us  an  admirable  precaution  against 
accepting  such  claims  when  they  occur.  I  shall  grad- 
ually lead  up  to  the  alleged  spiritistic  type  and  illus- 
trate cases  which  make  no  pretence  of  this. 

I  shall  begin  with  the  historic  case  of  Professor  ^ 
Janet.  It  was  really  a  case  of  triple  personality, 
but  this  only  shows  that  the  dissociation  may  extend 
to  various  groups  of  mental  states  which  may  sub- 
liminally  group  themselves  in  different  ways.  Dr. 
Janet  calls  the  three  separate  personalities  by  the 
names  of  Leonie,  Leontine,  and  Leonore  to  represent 
the  dissociated  personalities  of  Madame  B.  Leonie  is 
the  name  for  Madame  B.  in  her  normal  or  primary 
state.  Leontine  is  the  name  for  her  secondary  state. 
Leonore  is  the  name  for  the  ternary  state,  which  is 
deeper  than  the  other  two.  I  now  take  Janet's  own 
account  of  the  case,  translated  into  English  in  Mr. 
Myers'  Humcm  PersoTiality,  etc. 

"  In  these  researches  Mme.  B.  in  her  every-day 
condition  is  known  by  the  name  of  Leonie.  In  the 
hypnotic  trance  she  has  chosen  for  herself  the  name 
of  Leontine,   which   thus   represents   her   secondary 


262    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

personality.  Behind  these  two,  this  triple  personality 
is  completed  by  a  mysterious  Leonore,  who  may  for 
the  present  be  taken  as  non-existent.  A  post-hyp- 
notic suggestion  was  given  to  Leontine,  that  is  to 
say,  Leonie  was  hypnotized  and  straightway  became 
Leontine,  and  Leontine  was  told  by  Professor  Janet 
that  after  the  trance  was  over,  and  Leonie  had  re- 
sumed her  ordinary  life,  she,  Leontine,  was  to  take 
off  her  apron  —  the  joint  apron  of  Leonie  and  Leon- 
tine —  and  then  to  tie  it  on  again.  The  trance  was 
stopped,  Leonie  was  awakened,  and  conducted  Pro- 
fessor Janet  to  the  door,  talking  with  her  usual  re- 
spectful gravity  on  ordinary  topics.  Meantime,  her 
hands  —  the  joint  hands  of  Leonie  and  Leontine  — 
untied  her  apron,  the  joint  apron,  and  took  it  off. 
Professor  Janet  called  Leonie's  attention  to  the  loos- 
ened apron.  '  Why,  my  apron  is  coming  off ! '  Leonie 
exclaimed,  and,  with  full  consciousness  and  intention, 
she  tied  it  on  again.  She  then  continued  to  talk,  and 
for  her  —  Leonie  —  the  incident  was  over.  The 
apron,  she  supposed,  had  somehow  come  untied,  and 
she  had  retied  it.  This,  however,  was  not  enough  for 
Leontine.  At  Leontine's  prompting,  the  joint  hands 
again  began  their  work,  and  the  apron  was  taken  off 
again  and  again  replaced,  this  time  without  Leonie's 
attention  having  been  directed  to  the  matter  at  all. 
"  Next  day  Professor  Janet  hypnotized  Leonie 
again,  and  presently  Leontine,  as  usual,  assumed  con- 
trol of  the  joint  personality.  'Well,'  she  said,  'I 
did  what  you  told  me  yesterday!  How  stupid  the 
other  one  looked '  —  Leontine  always  calls  Leonie 
'  the  other  one  '  — ^ '  while  I  took  her  apron  off !  Why 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  263 

did  you  tell  her  that  her  apron  was  falling  off?     I 
was  obliged  to  begin  the  job  over  again.' 

"  Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with  a  secondary  per- 
sonality summoned  into  being,  so  to  say,  by  our  own 
experiments,  and  taking  its  orders  entirely  from  us. 
It  seems,  however,  that,  when  once  set  up,  this  new 
personality  can  occasionally  assume  the  initiative, 
and  can  say  what  it  wants  to  say  without  any 
prompting.  This  is  curiously  illustrated  by  what 
may  be  termed  a  conjoint  epistle  addressed  to  Pro- 
fessor Janet  by  Mme.  B.  and  her  secondary  person- 
ality, Leontine.  She  had  left  Havre  more  than  two 
months  when  I  received  from  her  a  very  curious  let- 
ter. On  the  first  page  was  a  curious  note,  written 
in  a  serious  and  respectful  style.  She  was  unwell, 
she  said,  worse  on  some  days  than  on  others,  and  she 
signed  her  true  name,  Mme.  B.  But  over  the  page 
began  another  letter  in  a  quite  different  style,  and 
which  I  may  quote  as  a  curiosity.  '  My  dear  good 
sir,  I  must  tell  you  that  B.  really,  really  makes  me 
suffer  very  much;  she  cannot  sleep,  she  spits  blood, 
she  hurts  me;  I  am  going  to  demolish  her,  she  bores 
me,  I  am  ill  also,  this  is  from  your  devoted  Leontine.' 
When  Mme.  B.  returned  to  Havre  I  naturally  ques- 
tioned her  about  this  singular  missive.  She  remem- 
bered the  f,rst  letter  very  distinctly,  but  had  not  the 
slightest  recollection  of  the  second.  I  at  first  thought 
that  there  must  have  been  an  attack  of  spontaneous 
somnambulism  between  the  moment  when  she  fin- 
ished the  first  letter  and  the  moment  when  she  closed 
the  envelope.  But  afterwards  these  unconscious, 
spontaneous  letters  became  common,  and  I  was  better 


f  op  THE 


y 


^64    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

able  to  study  their  mode  of  production.  I  was  for- 
tunately able  to  watch  Mme.  B.  on  one  occasion 
while  she  went  through  this  curious  performance. 
She  was  seated  at  a  table,  and  held  in  her  left  hand 
the  piece  of  knitting  at  which  she  had  been  working. 
Her  face  was  calm,  her  eyes  looked  into  space  with 
a  certain  fixity,  but  she  was  not  cataleptic,  for  she 
was  humming  a  rustic  air;  her  right  hand  wrote 
quickly,  and,  as  it  were,  surreptitiously.  I  removed 
the  paper  without  her  noticing  me,  and  then  spoke 
to  her;  she  turned  around,  wide  awake,  but  sur- 
prised to  see  me,  for  in  her  state  of  distraction  she 
had  not  noticed  me  approach.  Of  the  letter  which 
she  was  writing  she  knew  nothing  whatever. 

"  Leontine's  independent  action  is  not  entirely  con- 
fined to  writing  letters.  She  observed  (apparently) 
that  when  her  primary  self,  Leonie,  discovered  these 
letters,  she  (Leonie)  tore  them  up.  So  Leontine  hit 
on  the  plan  of  placing  them  in  a  photographic  album 
into  which  Leonie  could  not  look  without  falling  into 
catalepsy  (on  account  of  an  association  of  ideas  with 
Dr.  Gibert,  whose  portrait  had  been  in  the  album). 
In  order  to  accomplish  an  act  like  this  Leontine  has 
to  wait  for  a  moment  when  Leonie  is  distracted,  or, 
as  we  say,  absent-minded.  If  she  can  catch  her  in 
this  state  Leontine  can  direct  Leonie's  walks,  for  in- 
stance, or  make  her  start  on  a  railway  journey  with- 
out luggage,  in  order  to  get  to  Havre  as  quickly  as 
possible. 

"  We  now  come  to  consider  the  third  personality, 
Leonore.  Although  Leonie's  unconscious  acts  are 
sometimes    (not   always)    coincident  with   Leontine's 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  265 

conscious  ones,  Leontine's  unconscious  acts  are  never 
included  in  Leonie's  memory,  any  more  than  in  Leon- 
tine's  own.  They  belong  to  some  other,  to  some  pro- 
founder  manifestation  of  personality,  to  which  M. 
Janet  has  given  the  name  of  Leonore.  And  observe 
that  just  as  Leontine  can  sometimes  by  her  own  mo- 
tion and  without  suggestion  write  a  letter  during 
Leonie's  waking  state  and  give  advice  which  Leonie 
might  do  well  to  follow,  so  also  Leonore  can  occa- 
sionally intervene  of  her  own  motion  during  Leon- 
tine's  dominance,  and  give  advice  which  Leontine 
might  with  advantage  obey. 

" '  The  spontaneous  acts  of  the  unconscious  self,' 
says  M.  Janet,  here  meaning  by  Vmconscient  the 
entity  to  which  he  has  given  the  name  of  Leonore, 
*  may  also  assume  a  very  reasonable  form,  a  form 
which,  were  it  better  understood,  might  perhaps 
serve  to  explain  certain  cases  of  insanity.  Mme.  B. 
during  her  somnambulism  (i.  e.  Leontine)  had  had 
a  sort  of  hysterical  crisis ;  she  was  restless  and  noisy, 
and  I  could  not  calm  her.  Suddenly  she  stopped  and 
said  to  me  with  terror,  *  Oh,  who  is  talking  to  me 
like  that?  It  frightens  me.'  '  No  one  is  talking  to 
you.'  '  Yes !  there  on  the  the  left.'  And  she  got 
up  and  tried  to  open  a  wardrobe  on  her  left  hand, 
to  see  if  some  one  was  hidden  there.  '  What  is  it 
that  you  hear?  '  I  asked.  '  I  hear  on  the  left  a  voice 
which  repeats,  "  Enough !  enough !  be  quiet ;  you 
are  a  nuisance."  '  Assuredly  the  voice  which  thus 
spoke  was  a  reasonable  one,  for  Leontine  was  insup- 
portable; but  I  had  suggested  nothing  of  the  kind, 
and  had  had  no  idea  of  inspiring  a  hallucination  of 


S66    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

hearing.  Another  day  Leontine  was  quite  calm,  but 
obstinately  refused  to  answer  a  question  which  I 
asked.  Again  she  heard  with  terror  the  same  voice 
to  her  left,  saying :  '  Come,  be  sensible,  you  must 
answer.'  Thus  the  unconscious  sometimes  gave  her 
excellent  advice. 

"  And  in  effect,  so  soon  as  Leonore,  in  her  turn, 
was  summoned  into  communication,  she  accepted  the 
responsibility  of  this  counsel.  '  What  was  it  that 
happened,'  asked  M.  Janet,  '  when  Leontine  was 
so  frightened.'^'  'Oh,  nothing;  it  was  I  who  told 
her  to  keep  quiet;  I  saw  she  was  annoying  you;  I 
don't  know  why  she  was  so  frightened.' 

"  Just  as  Mme.  B.  was  sent  by  passes  into 
a  state  of  lethargy  from  which  she  emerged  as  Leon- 
tine, so  also  Leontine  in  her  turn  was  reduced  by 
renewed  passes  to  a  state  of  lethargy  from  which 
she  emerged  no  longer  as  Leontine,  but  as  Leonore. 
This  second  awakening  is  slow  and  gradual,  but  the 
personality  which  emerges  is  in  one  most  important 
point  superior  to  either  Leonie  or  Leontine.  Alone 
among  the  subject's  phases  this  phase  possesses  the 
memory  of  every  phase.  Leonore,  like  Leontine, 
knows  the  normal  life  of  Leonie,  but  distinguishes 
herself  from  Leonie,  in  whom,  it  must  be  said,  these 
subjacent  personalities  appear  to  take  little  interest. 
But  Leonore  also  remembers  the  life  of  Leontine, 
condemns  her  as  noisy  and  frivolous,  and  is  anxious 
not  to  be  confounded  with  either. 

"  Yet  one  further  variation,  and  I  end  my  brief 
resume  of  this  complex  history.  Leonore  is  liable 
to  pass  into  a  state  which  does  not,  indeed,  interrupt 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  267 

her  chain  of  memory,  but  which  removes  her  for  a 
time  from  the  possibiKty  of  communicating  with 
other  minds.  She  grows  pale,  she  ceases  to  speak 
or  hear,  her  eyes,  though  still  shut,  are  turned 
heavenwards,  her  mouth  smiles,  and  her  face  takes 
an  expression  of  beatitude. 

"  This  is  plainly  a  state  of  so-called  ecstasy ;  but 
it  differs  from  the  ecstasy  common  in  hysterical  at- 
tacks in  one  capital  point.  Not  only  is  it  remembered 
—  indistinctly,  perhaps  —  by  Leonore,  who  describes 
herself  as  having  been  dazzled  by  a  light  on  the 
left  side,  but  also  brings  with  it  the  most  complex 
of  all  the  chains  of  memory,  supplementing  even 
Leonore's  recollection  on  certain  acts  which  have  been 
accomplished  by  Leonore  herself." 

The  chief  psychological  interest  in  this  case  lies 
in  the  apparent  independence  of  the  three  person- 
alities in  which  different  groups  of  mental  states  or 
memories  are  associated  and  held,  in  such  a  group, 
apart  from  other  groups.  The  apparent  communi- 
cation between  them,  limited  it  is  true,  but  yet  at 
least  through  memory  in  one  direction  and  by  means 
of  hallucination  in  the  other,  illustrates  this  ap- 
parent independence  very  clearly,  and  shows  the 
secondary  and  ternary  personalities  highly  organized 
and  perfectly  simulative  of  realities  other  than  the 
normal  or  primary  consciousness.  In  fact,  it  might 
be  said  that  we  have  no  positive  assurance  for  select- 
ing one  of  them  rather  than  the  other  as  the  normal, 
save  that  what  is  called  the  primary  in  the  case 
seems  that  condition  best  adjusted  to  the  normal 
environment.     This  criterion  is  sufficient,  and  it  re- 


268    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

veals  subliminal  states  as  distinct  from  the  supralimi- 
nal as  any  objective  person  can  show,  except  perhaps 
in  the  fact  that  there  is  a  mnemonic  connection  in 
one  direction  at  least,  which  indicates  an  identity  of 
subject  for  all  the  personalities,  if  our  ordinary 
standard  of  such  things  is  to  be  accepted. 

Some  will  notice  a  semblance  to  spiritistic  phenom- 
ena, or  at  least  they  will  allege  this  semblance,  and 
in  the  past  many  have  explained  all  such  instances 
as  cases  of  "  possession,"  sometimes  as  demoniac 
possession.  But  the  connection  between  the  person- 
alities, though  not  a  conscious  one  and  only  by  means 
of  memory,  as  well  as  common  language  and  style, 
indubitably  show  that  any  theory  of  supernormal 
phenomena  in  them  must  be  cast  out  of  court.  The 
superficial  resemblance  is  there,  but  the  real  similarity 
is  not.  There  is  only  a  perplexity  for  that  older 
psychology  which  limited  the  capacities  of  mental 
action  to  the  normal  consciousness  and  referred 
everything  else  either  to  cerebral  functions  or  to 
spirits.  The  assurance  of  subliminal  actions,  how- 
ever, has  eliminated  an  appeal  to  the  supernor- 
mal for  all  but  that  type  of  specific  knowledge 
which  is  represented  in  telepathic  phenomena  and 
other  incidents  really  or  apparently  transcending  it. 
One  important  point,  however,  is  that  there  is  no 
pretence  on  the  surface  of  any  source  for  the  phenom- 
ena but  the  apparent  one,  namely,  that  of  the  sub- 
ject's own  mind,  and  without  any  other  claim  it  is 
folly  to  assert  or  suppose  it.  I  selected  the  case  for 
precisely  this  characteristic.  The  personalities  show 
sufficient  independence  to  take  the  phenomena  beyond 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  S69 

ordinary  healthy  or  normal  dissociation  and  to  place 
them  in  a  field  by  themselves.  Once  understood,  they 
will  limit  the  claims  of  transcendental  manifestations 
very  decidedly. 

I  take  next  another  case  which  will  be  historical 
for  the  psychological  care  with  which  it  was  investi- 
gated by  Prof.  William  James  and  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson.  I  refer  to  that  of  Ansel  Bourne,  men- 
tioned previously  under  "  Dissociation,"  and  re- 
ported in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research  (Vol.  VII). 

Mr.  Ansel  Bourne  lived  in  Providence,  Rhode 
Island,  and  earlier  in  life  had  had  some  interesting 
mental  experiences  bordering  on  epilepsy.  He  seemed 
to  have  recovered  from  these  years  before  the  occur- 
rence of  the  incident  which  is  of  interest  here.  They 
are  mentioned,  however,  as  of  importance  to  the  phy- 
sician and  medical  student  of  similar  cases  likely 
to  recur  from  such  antecedent  experiences.  They 
probably  explain  Mr.  Bourne's  liability  to  the  attack 
which  proved  of  so  much  psychological  interest.  Mr. 
Bourne  disappeared  from  his  home  in  Providence  on 
January  17,  1887.  On  January  notice  was  pub- 
lished in  the  papers  of  his  disappearance.  No  trace 
of  the  man  could  be  found,  and  his  family  gave  him 
up  for  lost.  He  was  sixty  years  of  age.  Eight 
weeks  later  he  awakened  up,  as  it  were,  from  a  sus- 
tained trance,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  in  Norristown, 
Pa.,  and  through  inquiries  of  the  physician  who  was 
called  in  at  the  time  was  returned  to  his  home  in 
charge  of  his  nephew.  This  eight  weeks  of  his  life 
was  a  blank  in  his  memory.     The  thought  occurred 


^70    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

to  Professor  James  that  possibly  under  hypnosis  the 
man  might  give  up  the  memory  of  his  life  during 
this  trance  period,  and  with  Dr.  Hodgson  the 
experiment  was  made.  It  was  successful,  and  the 
results  were  verified,  showing  that  his  statements  in 
the  hypnotic  state  were  true.  The  details  of  his 
awakening  and  the  experiments  are  briefly  summa- 
rized in  the  following  account. 

The  evidence  of  people  in  Norristown,  Pa.,  showed 
that  Mr.  Bourne  had  arrived  in  this  place  about  two 
weeks  after  he  left  Providence.  He  rented  a  store- 
room and  divided  it  into  two  apartments  by  a  cur- 
tain. In  the  front  part  he  kept  a  little  store  for 
toys,  confectionery,  etc.,  going  to  and  from  Phila- 
delphia to  purchase  his  goods  when  necessary.  In 
the  back  part  of  the  room  he  slept  and  did  his  own 
cooking.  He  fastened  a  sign  to  his  window  which 
read  "  ^.  J.  Brown."  The  room  which  he  rented 
was  part  of  a  house  in  which  another  family  was 
living.  He  was  regular  in  his  habits,  and  went  to 
church  on  Sundays,  as  it  had  been  his  wont  in  his 
normal  state.  No  one  noticed  any  indications  of 
abnormal  actions. 

On  the  morning  of  March  14th,  about  ^\q  o'clock, 
he  heard  an  explosion  something  like  a  pistol-shot, 
and  awakening  found  himself  in  a  strange  place 
which  he  could  not  recognize.  He  lay  for  about 
two  hours  in  fear  that  he  might  be  arrested  as  a 
burglar.  The  last  thing  of  his  normal  life  which 
he  could  remember  was  the  express  wagons  at  the 
comer  of  Dorrance  and  Broad  Streets  in  Providence. 
Finally  he  mustered  up  courage  to  open  his  door, 


SUBCONSCIOUS   ACTION  ^71 

and  hearing  some  one  in  the  next  room,  he  rapped  on 
its  door  and  was  answered  by  the  man  of  the  house, 
whose  name  was  Mr.  Earle.  He  asked  Mr.  Earle 
where  he  was,  and  Mr.  Earle  repHed  that  he  was  all 
right,  and  addressed  Mr.  Bourne  as  Mr.  Brown. 
Mr.  Bourne  said  his  name  was  not  Brown,  and  asked 
again  where  he  was.  He  was  told,  and  had  to  ask 
further  what  part  of  the  country  it  was.  When 
told  this,  he  asked  what  time  of  the  month  it  was, 
and,  receiving  the  reply  that  it  was  the  14th,  he 
wanted  to  know  if  time  went  backward  in  this  part 
of  the  country,  as  it  was  the  17th  when  he  left 
home,  and  was  astonished  to  find  that  it  was  the 
14th  of  March  instead  of  January,  on  the  17th 
of  which  he  had  left  home.  Mr.  Earle  thought  the 
man  was  out  of  his  mind,  and  sent  for  a  physician, 
and  the  result  of  inquiry  was  that  a  telegram  was 
sent  to  Mr.  Bourne's  nephew  in  response  to  Mr. 
Bourne's  request  and  giving  of  that  person's  ad- 
dress. The  nephew  soon  arrived,  disposed  of  the 
contents  of  the  store,  and  took  the  man  home.  As 
said  above,  Mr.  Bourne  had  no  recollection  of  the 
events  during  this  eight  weeks,  and  what  I  have 
told  was  gathered  either  from  others  who  knew  him 
at  the  time,  or  from  his  own  statements  under  hyp- 
nosis, save  two  or  three  incidents  which  were  common 
to  the  memory  of  his  primary  and  secondary  states. 
When  he  was  hypnotized  at  the  suggestion  of 
Professor  James,  Mr.  Bourne  gave  his  name  as  "  A. 
J.  Brown,"  and  told  the  history  of  his  travels  and 
actions  subsequent  to  his  leaving  Providence.  He 
had  gone  to  New  York,  thence  to  Philadelphia,  tell- 


272    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ing  where  he  had  stopped  in  the  latter  place,  and 
finally  to  Norristown.  He  remembered  the  date  of 
his  first  marriage,  but  not  the  name  of  his  wife; 
his  recollection  about  his  children  was  not  clear,  and, 
in  fact,  very  few  incidents  in  his  normal  life  could 
be  recalled  in  his  hypnotic  state.  In  the  latter  state 
he  claimed  to  have  been  bom  in  Newton,  N.  H.  But 
in  fact  he  was  born  in  New  York,  though  he  gave 
the  date  of  his  birth  rightly  when  claiming  that  it 
was  in  Newton,  and  it  was  proved  that  he  had  never 
been  in  Newton.  He  stated  that  he  had  never 
heard  of  an  "  A.  J.  Brown."  Many  of  the  inci- 
dents of  the  hypnotic  state  were  verified,  and  a  few 
of  his  normal  experiences  were  confirmed  after  their 
mention  in  the  secondary  state.  But  he  seemed  in 
this  secondary  state  never  to  have  heard  of  Ansel 
Bourne,  and  in  the  normal  state  he  knew  nothing  of 
"  A.  J.  Brown."  All  eff^orts  to  fuse  the  two  person- 
alities into  one  failed,  and  no  clear  association  of  the 
two  personalities  could  be  suggested. 

Again  we  have  a  case  which  showed  no  superficial 
claim  to  supernormal  phenomena  and  no  apparent 
suggestion  of  the  spiritistic.  The  independence  of 
the  two  personalities  is  no  evidence  of  this  sugges- 
tion. To  the  psychiatrist  this  goes  without  saying, 
but  the  layman  has  not  yet  realized  the  fact  that  his 
mental  action  extends  beyond  the  limits  of  his  normal 
consciousness,  or  that  there  may  even  be  a  concom- 
itant consciousness  carrying  on  its  activity  simul- 
taneously with  the  primary  states,  and  capable  of 
simulating  the  nature  and  actions  of  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent person.     This  is  why   I  emphasize   cases   of 


SUBCONSCIOUS   ACTION  ns 

this  kind  which  exhibit  so  clearly  the  appearance 
of  another  than  the  real  person  and  yet  supply  no 
evidence  of  being  any  other.  The  incidents  which 
were  common  to  the  memories  of  the  two  personalities, 
Ansel  Bourne  and  A.  J.  Brown,  are  distinct  evi- 
dence of  a  deeper  unity  than  the  subject's  actions 
superficially  indicate.  The  abnormal  state  in  which 
the  two  lives  appear  as  dissociated  is  somewhat  like 
the  dream-life.  Dissociation  takes  place  in  this  to 
some  extent,  sometimes  to  a  very  large  extent,  and 
yet  may  be  united  in  the  memory  of  the  normal 
condition.  So  here  we  have  phenomena  which  sug- 
gest to  the  natural  mind  an  interpretation  which  will 
not  bear  investigation,  and  having  once  ascertained 
this  fact,  we  have  a  decided  limitation  to  the  claims 
of  transcendental  agencies.  Our  own  unconscious 
life  may  simulate  these  to  any  extent  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  supernormal,  and  what  it  may  do 
beyond  this  has  not  been  determined  with  perfect 
accuracy. 

The  case  of  Dr.  Morton  Prince,  of  which  brief 
mention  has  already  been  made,  is  probably  the  most 
remarkable  on  record.  This  characteristic  of  it, 
however,  may  be  due  more  to  the  thorough  way  in 
which  it  was  investigated  and  reported  than  to  any- 
thing more  astonishing  than  in  other  cases.  This 
case  had  the  good  fortune  to  have  the  supervision 
of  one  versed  in  psychology,  and  hence  important 
facts  were  observed  that  would  have  been  undis- 
covered in  other  instances.  It  is  a  case  of  quadruple 
or  multiple  personality,  exhibiting  four  clearly  de- 
veloped personalities,  with  traces  of  other  incipient 


274    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

personalities.  The  four  developed  instances  are  the 
only  ones  that  will  interest  us  here. 

I  shall  not  go  into  the  history  of  this  case,  as  it 
would  be  too  long.  Readers  at  all  interested  in  such 
phenomena  beyond  the  most  superficial  notice  should 
read  Dr.  Prince's  report,  The  Dissociation  of  a 
Personality,  It  is  plainly  intelligible  to  general 
readers,  and  is  not  solely  for  technical  students  of 
morbid  psychology. 

The  case  is  that  of  a  lady  whom  he  calls  Miss 
Beauchamp  (pronounced  Beecham),  Dr.  Prince 
names  the  personalities  BI,  BII,  Bill,  and  BIV. 
The  first,  BI,  is  the  normal  Miss  Beauchamp.  BII 
is  BI  hypnotized.  Bill  was  thought  at  first  to  be 
the  result  of  deeper  hypnosis,  and  so  BII  hypnotized, 
but  was  soon  found  to  be  a  distinct  personality  of  a 
very  interesting  character,  and  not  at  all  the  result 
of  any  hypnosis,  and  with  a  wider  knowledge  than 
either  BI  or  BII.  The  last  developed  was  BIV.  In 
accordance  with  the  usage  of  Dr.  Prince,  Bill 
will  be  called  Sally,  which  is  apparently  the  name 
which  Bill  gave  herself,  after  first  using  Chris,  the 
nickname  of  the  normal  Miss  Beauchamp,  or  BI. 

These  personalities  alternated  at  various  intervals. 
Sometimes  Miss  Beauchamp  would  be  all  four  within 
an  hour.  Sometimes  one  of  them  would  dominate  for 
a  considerable  period.  This  question  does  not  in- 
terest us  here,  as  we  are  concerned  with  the  features 
which  illustrate  apparent  independent  persons.  The 
characteristic  which  enables  us  to  distinguish  their 
separate  nature  is  that  of  memory.  BI  has  a  certain 
range  of  memory  natural  to  the  normal  state.     BII 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  275 

has  a  wider  memory,  including  the  experience  of  BI 
and  the  experiences  acquired  in  this  secondary  state. 
Bill,  or  Sally,  has  a  still  wider  memory,  including 
all  that  occurs  in  BI  and  BII,  except  BIV's  thoughts, 
and  all  that  occurs  while  she  herself,  Sally,  dominates. 
BIV  knows  practically  nothing  of  the  other  three 
personalities  save  scattered  memories,  while  Sally 
possesses  a  peculiar  relation  to  BIV.  Sally,  or  Bill, 
knew  the  acts  of  BIV,  but  not  her  thoughts  at  first, 
and  only  obtained  a  knowledge  of  her  thoughts  after 
a  long  effort.  BI  knew  nothing  of  the  other  three; 
BII  also  knew  nothing  of  Bill  and  BIV,  but  had  the 
memories  of  BI.  BIV  knew  nothing  of  the  other 
three  except  what  she  got  by  inference.  She  knew 
nothing  directly,  and  hated  Bill  with  all*  the  malig- 
nity of  an  evil  spirit.  Bill,  or  Sally,  hated  BI, 
and  in  a  different  way  BIV.  She  called  BI  the 
"  Saint,"  and  BIV  the  "  Idiot." 

I  cannot  expect  the  reader  to  form  any  clear  con- 
ception of  these  complicated  personalities,  and  I  have 
not  outlined  their  characteristics  and  relations  with 
any  such  expectations  in  view.  Dr.  Prince's  book 
will  have  to  be  read  and  reread  to  understand  them. 
But  I  have  made  this  brief  statement  for  the  purpose 
of  indicating  the  complexity  of  the  case,  and  to 
show  what  the  mind  is  capable  of  doing  in  its 
secondary  functions.  Its  interest  and  importance  will 
be  still  more  apparent  when  we  examine  some  of  the 
principal  phenomena  of  the  several  personalities. 

The  personality  which  excites  most  interest  psy- 
chologically in  the  case  is  Sally.  The  others  seemed 
to  be  in  the  way  of  Sally's  development,  and  were 


^76   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  object  of  her  various  efforts  to  dispel  or  dis- 
possess. The  alternation  from  one  to  another  kept 
Sally  from  obtaining  complete  control  of  the  bodily 
organism  and  its  life.  BI,  as  indicated,  was  demure 
and  religious.  BII  seemed  more  natural,  but  Bill,  or 
Sally,  was  a  rollicking,  mischievous  young  girl,  who 
wanted  to  have  a  good  time,  and  had  no  patience 
with  the  restraints  of  a  religious  life,  modelled  after 
the  Roman  Church,  with  its  penances  and  meditations. 
Hence  Sally  wanted  to  eliminate  all  that  interfered 
with  her  plans  to  control. 

BI  had  an  antipathy  to  snakes,  spiders,  insects, 
etc.,  and  Bill,  or  Sally,  would  collect  spiders  and 
enclose  them  in  a  box  for  BI  to  discover  when  she 
appeared,  and  the  result  would  be  to  frighten  BI, 
in  which  Sally  would  take  great  delight.  Besides 
tricks  of  this  sort,  Sally  would  go  far  into  the 
country  on  the  last  car  at  night,  and  then  waken 
BI  up  and  leave  her  to  walk  home,  which  would 
result  in  a  sick  spell  for  BI,  Sally  never  being  sick! 

An  interesting  feature  in  the  development  of  Sally 
is  the  following:  When  BI  was  hypnotized,  BII, 
who  was  simply  BI  hypnotized,  as  explained  before, 
had  her  eyes  closed.  When  Sally  appeared  she  com- 
plained that  her  eyes  were  shut,  and  the  fact  in- 
terfered with  her  personality.  It  was  only  after  a 
long  and  laborious  effort  that  she  managed  to  get 
"  her  eyes  open."  When  she  did,  she  had  more 
power.  A  curious  incident  of  it  was  that,  while  the 
eyes  were  shut,  Sally  had  no  sense  of  touch.  That 
is,  she  was  anaesthetic  in  that  sense.  But  as  soon 
as  she  got  her  eyes  open  that  sense  was  apparently 


SUBCONSCIOUS   ACTION  ni 

sensible,  and  Sally  could  do  things  which  she  could 
not  do  when  the  eyes  were  closed.  I  quote  Dr.  Prince : 

"  With  her  eyes  closed  she  can  feel  nothing.  The 
tactile,  pain,  thermic,  and  muscular  senses  are  in- 
volved. You  may  stroke,  prick,  or  burn  any  part 
of  her  skin  and  she  does  not  feel  it.  You  may  place 
a  limb  in  any  posture  without  her  being  able  to 
recognize  the  position  which  has  been  assumed.  But 
let  her  open  her  eyes  and  look  at  what  you  are 
doing,  let  her  join  the  visual  with  the  tactile  or 
other  senses,  and  the  lost  senses  return." 

It  was  the  opening  of  BII's  eyes  that  gave  Sally 
her  power,  and  she  used  it  with  a  vengeance.  When 
she  was  not  in  control,  automatic  writing  was  the 
only  resource  she  had  for  expressing  her  wishes.  But 
when  she  was  in  control  she  resorted  to  all  sorts  of 
devices  to  keep  it  and  to  foil  the  efforts  of  Dr. 
Prince  to  eliminate  her  personality  and  cure  Miss 
Beauchamp.  She  would  write  letters  to  certain 
friends,  making  engagements  which  Miss  Beau- 
champ  did  not  wish  to  keep.  She  would  write  letters 
to  Dr.  Prince,  to  dissuade  him  from  further  ef- 
forts to  treat  Miss  Beauchamp,  who  would  find 
what  had  been  done  only  when  Dr.  Prince  had 
informed  her  of  it.  Sometimes  Sally  would  write 
a  letter  to  Miss  Beauchamp  herself,  trying  to  per- 
suade her  to  take  certain  courses  agreeable  to  Sally, 
or  would  cajole  and  threaten  her  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
At  times  Sally  would  become  frightened  at  the  re- 
sults of  her  own  conduct.  She  feared  that  Miss 
Beauchamp  might  die,  and  this  created  anxiety  as  to 
what  would  become  of  herself,  that  is,  Sally.     She 


£78    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

tried  to  deceive  Dr.  Prince  in  a  variety  of  ways.  She 
would  simulate  Miss  Beauchamp,  or  BI,  whenever 
she  could,  but  was  always  easily  detected  by  her  char- 
acter and  manner.  The  letters  which  she  wrote  are 
psychological  treasures  in  secondary  phenomena,  and 
no  less  so  are  the  efforts  to  obtain  complete  control 
of  the  life  of  the  organism  from  whose  actions  she 
was  generally  excluded.  Finally,  in  order  to  gain 
the  desired  control,  Sally  began  to  torment  Miss 
Beauchamp  in  various  ways,  such  as  putting  her  on 
an  allowance  of  ten  cents  a  day,  hiding  her  money, 
unravelling  her  work,  threatening  to  cut  off  her  hair, 
making  her  lie  awake  all  night,  etc.  All  this  BI  or 
Miss  Beauchamp  would  learn  through  others  or  by 
the  letters  sent  to  Dr.  Prince,  or  statements  made  by 
Sally  herself  to  Dr.  Prince  when  BI  was  unconscious 
or  not  dominant.  Miss  Beauchamp  was  kept  in  per- 
fect terror  by  it. 

When  BIV  appeared  a  stronger  antipathy  than 
ever  arose  between  her  and  Sally,  or  Bill.  For  BIV 
had  more  strength  of  will  and  character  than  BI,  and 
was  determined,  more  determined  than  BI,  to  get 
rid  of  Sally.  The  struggle  that  went  on  between 
them  has  no  rival  in  the  annals  of  secondary  person- 
ality. The  two  fought  against  each  other  for  pos- 
session of  Miss  Beauchamp's  body.  The  final  pre- 
vention of  this  by  Dr.  Prince  was  the  fusion  of  BII 
and  BIV  into  one  personality,  more  or  less.  He 
succeeded  in  getting  their  memories  to  be  the  same, 
as  he  had  supposed  that  BIV  was  in  reality  the 
normal  Miss  Beauchamp,  though  BI  had  at  least 
superficially  appeared  to  be  this.     But  apparently, 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  ^79 

and  at  least  for  the  present,  Sallj  was  suppressed 
with  the  fusion  of  two  or  more  of  the  personalities 
into  one. 

Sally's  superior  knowledge  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  other  personalities  made  her  a  most  convenient 
source  of  information  to  Dr.  Prince.  He  tested  her 
regarding  her  claims  to  know  what  the  other  person- 
alities did  or  thought,  and  he  found  her  quite  reli- 
able, though  the  others  did  not  know  a  thing  about 
Sally,  except  what  Dr.  Prince  told  them  or  what 
they  learned  indirectly  by  letter  and  inference.  As 
examples  of  what  Sally  claimed  to  know  and  seems 
to  have  known  correctly  are  Miss  Beauchamp's 
dreams.  Dr.  Prince  got  Miss  Beauchamp  to  tell 
him  her  dreams,  which  she  did.  Sally  repeated  them 
and  told  a  great  many  more  which  Miss  Beauchamp 
could  not  remember.  Sally  said  that  there  was  no 
difference  whatever  between  those  that  Miss  Beau- 
champ told  and  those  which  she  did  not  know.  Sally 
said  that  she  did  not  understand  why  Dr.  Prince 
called  one  class  of  them  dreams  and  the  other  not, 
as  they  were  all  alike,  and  could  not  be  distinguished 
by  herself.  Finally  Sally  hypnotized  BIV,  follow- 
ing the  idea  which  she  had  caught  from  Dr.  Prince's 
actions  in  the  case  of  BI,  and  Sally  also  succeeded, 
as  we  have  already  indicated,  in  producing  hallu- 
cinations in  BIV.  All  this  was  more  or  less  verified 
by  the  reported  experiences  of  the  other  personali- 
ties. 

Sally  had  made  certain  claims  about  the  extent 
of  her  knowledge,  and  he  conceived  the  plan  of  hav- 
ing her  write  out  an  autobiography  of  herself.     This 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

she  attempted  to  do,  but  BIV  would  discover  the 
written  manuscript  and  destroy  it.  Finally  Dr. 
Prince  got  an  account  of  her  life.  She  claimed  to 
have  a  memory  of  events  when  she  was  in  the  cradle 
(that  is,  when  Miss  Beauchamp  was  in  the  cradle). 
She  told  of  Miss  Beauchamp's  learning  to  walk  and 
talk,  and  of  her  playing  with  objects  on  the  floor. 
Sally,  however,  insisted  that  she  herself  was  not  the 
same  as  Miss  Beauchamp,  and  that  her  own  con- 
sciousness was  distinct  from  that  of  Miss  Beauchamp. 
Let  me  quote  at  some  length  from  Sally's  autobiog- 
raphy. 

"  She  was  a  very  little  girl  just  learning  to  walk, 
and  kept  taking  hold  of  chairs  and  wanting  to  go 
ahead.  She  didn't  go  ahead,  but  was  all  shaking 
in  her  feet.  I  remember  her  thoughts  distinctly  as 
separate  from  mine.  Now  they  are  long  thoughts 
that  go  round  and  round,  but  then  they  were  little 
dashes.  Our  thoughts  then  went  along  the  same 
lines  because  we  had  the  same  experiences.  Now 
they  are  different;  our  interests  are  different.  Then 
she  was  interested  in  walking,  and  I  was  too,  only 
I  was  very  much  more  interested,  more  excited, 
wildly  enthusiastic.  I  remember  thinking  distinctly 
differently  from  her ;  that  is,  when  she  tried  to  walk 
she  would  be  distracted  by  a  chair  or  a  person  or  a 
picture  or  anything,  but  I  wanted  only  to  walk.  This 
happened  lots  of  times. 

"  Learning  to  walk  was  the  first  experience  of 
separate  thoughts.  I  remember  before  this  there 
wasn't  anything  but  myself,  only  one  person.  I 
don't  know  which  came  first.     I  remember  when  I 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  i281 

was  there  farther  back  than  she  can,  and  therefore 
why  wasn't  I  the  person? 

"  I  remember  lots  of  little  things.  When  she  was 
a  little  bit  of  a  thing  (so  small  that  she  couldn't  walk 
very  well)  she  had  visions  very  often.  I  didn't,  but 
I  was  conscious  of  her  having  them.  Her  visions 
didn't  represent  real  things  as  they  do  now.  I 
thought  they  were  interesting  and  enjoyed  her  hav- 
ing them.  During  all  her  childhood  I  remember  en- 
joying many  of  the  things  she  did.  She  was  awfully 
fond  of  out-of-door  things,  —  climbing,  running,  etc. 
I  enjoyed  them  and  wanted  to  go  farther  than  she 
did.  Some  people  she  liked  I  didn't.  Some  people 
she  went  to  see  and  talked  with  I  didn't  want  to  see, 
but  couldn't  help  it. 

"  I  suggested  things  to  her  sometimes  by  thinking 
hard.  I  didn't  really  do  them;  she  did  them,  but 
I  enjoyed  it.  I  don't  know  that  I  made  her;  I 
thought  about  them  very  hard.  I  didn't  deliberately 
try  to  make  her,  but  I  wanted  to  do  the  things,  and 
occasionally  she  carried  out  my  thought.  Most  times 
she  didn't  when  my  thoughts  were  entirely  different 
from  her  own.  Sometimes  she  was  punished  for  do- 
ing what  I  wanted ;  for  example,  I  didn't  like  going 
to  school ;  I  wanted  to  play  '  hookey.'  I  thought  it 
would  be  awfully  exciting,  because  the  boys  did  it 
and  were  always  telling  about  it.  She  liked  going  to 
school.  One  day  she  stayed  away  all  day  after  I 
had  been  thinking  about  it  for  a  long  time.  She 
didn't  want  to  do  it,  but  she  did.  She  was  punished 
and  put  to  bed  in  a  dark  room,  and  scolded  in  school 


282    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

and  made  to  sit  on  one  end  of  the  platform;  she 
was  shy  and  felt  conspicuoijs. 

"  I  always  knew  her  thoughts ;  I  knew  what  she 
was  thinking  about  on  the  platform.  She  was  think- 
ing partly  of  being  penitent  and  partly  of  fairy- 
tales, so  as  not  to  be  conscious  of  the  scholars  and 
teacher,  and  she  was  hungry.  I  was  chuckling,  and 
thought  it  amusing.  I  did  not  think  of  anything 
else  except  that  her  fairy-tales  were  silly.  She  be- 
lieved in  fairies,  that  they  were  very  real.  I  didn't 
and  don't.     At  this  time  she  was  a  little  girl." 

Sally  claims  that  she  never  sleeps,  and  Dr.  Prince 
found  that  she  knew  nothing  of  time.  She  could  not 
distinguish  between  ten  seconds  and  five  minutes.  As 
real  or  apparent  evidence  of  her  constant  waking 
state  is  the  fact  that  she  could  tell  both  the  remem- 
bered and  the  unremembered,  the  conscious  and  un- 
conscious dreams.  The  autobiography  implies  the 
same  fact  as  well  as  a  concomitant  or  parallel  state 
of  consciousness  with  the  others,  and  Dr.  Prince 
seems  to  have  obtained  independent  evidence  of  this 
simultaneous  consciousness. 

There  is  no  superficial  claim  made  in  this  remark- 
able case  that  any  outside  intelligence  is  responsible 
for  the  apparent  independent  personalities.  Yet  in 
so  far  as  distinction  between  personalities  is  con- 
cerned and  in  respect  of  the  peculiar  character  of 
"  Sally,"  who  is  apparently  so  distinct  from  the  ordi- 
nary life  and  experience  of  Miss  Beauchamp  and 
claims  never  to  sleep  and  knows  nothing  of  time,  the 
case  is  one  which  off^ers  a  rare  opportunity  to  those 
who  do  not  know  the  capacities  of  secondary  per- 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  £83 

sonalitj  to  set  up  the  hypothesis  of  external  intelli- 
gence in  the  case.  The  old  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  "  possession  "  lends  support  to  such  an  interpre- 
tation, and  I  can  well  understand  it  from  the  point 
of  view  of  those  who  accept  the  Cartesian  philosophy 
or  suppose  that  the  mind  has  no  capacity  for  con- 
sciousness or  intelligent  action  beyond  the  limits  of 
its  normal  or  primary  states.  But  the  proved  fact 
of  subliminal  action  creates  a  difficulty  for  the  older 
theories  of  "  possession  "  that  throws  the  burden  of 
proof  upon  them.  Besides  it  cannot  be  too  strongly 
emphasized  that,  in  this  case,  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  of  supernormal  knowledge,  and  none  that 
would  go  toward  proving  that  the  intelligence  dis- 
played is  beyond  or  transcends  the  experience  of  the 
normal  Miss  Beauchamp,  unless  we  accept  the  auto- 
biographic account  of  Sally  extending  back  to  in- 
fancy. But  there  is  nothing  to  prove  this,  and  even 
if  it  were  proved  there  is  no  evidence  that  such  a 
memory  would  be  supernormal  in  the  sense  which 
psychical  research  uses  the  term.  Moreover,  as  the 
claim  of  spiritistic  intelligence  is  not  made  for  Sally, 
or  other  personalities,  by  themselves  in  the  account 
of  them,  there  can  be  no  excuse  for  so  considering 
them,  and  the  absence  of  the  kind  of  evidence  that 
would  be  necessary  to  establish  a  presumption  for 
such  a  view  suffices  to  throw  the  hypothesis  out  of 
court. 

This  view  does  not  require  to  be  mentioned  to  the 
student  of  psychiatry  or  to  the  psychic  researcher 
who  understands  abnormal  psychology,  but  the  lay- 
man still  requires  knowledge  of  the  standard  for  dis- 


^84    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

criminating  between  subconscious  mental  action  and 
the  agency  of  transcendental  influences.  It  is  not 
enough  that  a  phenomenon  should  be  involuntary  or 
unconsciously  produced.  It  must  be  much  more  to 
obtain  the  credentials  of  the  supernormal.  It  must 
bear  the  stamp  of  knowledge  acquired  by  some  other 
process  than  sensory  experience.  It  must  also  show 
evidence  of  more  than  the  imagination  may  produce 
in  its  subliminal  creations,  and  we  have  at  present 
no  criterion  for  determining  the  limits  of  this  func- 
tion. It  matters  not  what  characteristics  of  independ- 
ent personality  are  exhibited  by  secondary  states  or 
by  the  subject  of  the  phenomena  claimed  to  have  an 
external  source,  if  they  do  not  show  evidences  of  per- 
sonal identity  of  deceased  persons  they  are  referable 
to  subliminal  action.  Hence  secondary  personality 
explains  many  phenomena  that  formerly  received  an- 
other explanation,  and  the  criterion  for  the  belief  in 
spirits  is  made  far  more  stringent. 

Such  cases  as  I  have  briefly  summarized  could  be 
indefinitely  illustrated,  but  they  suffice  to  show  what 
the  psychologist  has  to  consider  in  the  study  of  the 
claims  for  the  supernormal.  The  illustrations  which 
I  have  just  given  show  no  claim  on  the  part  of  the 
secondary  personalities  to  be  transcendental.  But 
there  are  instances  in  which  this  claim  is  made,  and 
they  are  the  next  in  order  to  consider.  The  first 
type  of  them  represents  the  next  step  after  such  as 
I  have  quoted.  I  quote  an  instance  given  by  Mr. 
Myers  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for 
Psychic  Research. 

A  gentleman  tried  automatic  writing.    This,  as  the 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  ^85 

reader  may  know,  is  unconscious  writing,  and  often 
exhibits  all  the  intelligence  of  the  normal  or  pri- 
mary consciousness,  though  this  latter  is  not  aware 
of  the  muscular  action  or  of  the  thoughts  that  are 
in  the  course  of  expression.  The  gentleman  alluded 
to  tried  this,  and  asked  questions  to  see  what  the 
answers  would  be.  After  finding  that  his  hand  would 
unconsciously  write,  he  proceeded  to  treat  it  as  a 
person,  and  received  replies  as  if  from  a  person.  The 
following  is  an  instance  of  the  results.  The  matter 
in  parentheses  represents  the  questions.  The  rest 
consists  of  the  answers. 

"  (Who  art  thou.'')  Clelia.  (Thou  art  a  woman?) 
Yes.  (Hast  thou  ever  lived  upon  the  earth?)  No. 
(Wilt  thou?)  Yes.  (When?)  Six  years.  (Where- 
fore dost  thou  speak  with  me?)    E  if  Clelia  e  1." 

This  last  answer  was  interpreted  as  a  sort  of  ana- 
gram and  to  mean  "  I  Clelia  feel."  The  gentleman 
says  in  a  note  that  he  never  knew  any  one  by  the 
name  of  Clelia  and  that  as  a  young  boy  he  had  been 
much  interested  in  anagrams.  But  we  have  in  the 
instance  a  definite  claim  to  be  something  apparently 
transcendental,  and  the  evidence  of  the  claim  is  abso- 
lutely nothing.  The  phenomena  are  like  delirious 
replies  to  question  where  the  mind  is  apparently  al- 
most delirious  and  having  once  imagined  a  personal- 
ity, a  condition  perhaps  occasioned  by  the  very  con- 
ception of  the  experiment  as  an  ostensible  attempt 
to  communicate  with  transcendental  intelligence,  a 
secondary  personality  soon  developed.  Once  sug- 
gested, the  subliminal  conscious  continues  to  play  the 
part,  and  we  have  the  vague  answers  of  a  mentsd  con- 


286    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

dition  at  a  loss  to  do  clear  thinking,  and  in  a  condi- 
tion of  delirium  or  somnambulism. 

There  are  very  frequent  cases  of  this  phenomena 
in  forms  claiming  to  communicate  a  philosophy,  eth- 
ical and  spiritual  advice,  or  the  habits  of  life  in  an- 
other world.  They  very  often  reflect  points  of  view 
quite  distinct  from  the  conceptions  of  the  individual's 
normal  experience,  but  when  examined  they  are  not 
beyond  either  the  natural  capacities  of  one's  dream- 
life  or  subliminal  action  idealizing  the  conceptions  of 
the  normal  life.  Illustrations  of  this  kind  are  legion, 
but  as  they  contain  no  evidence  of  the  supernormal 
of  any  kind  they  are  discredited  in  their  claims,  and 
so  regarded  as  the  products  of  secondary  personality. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  most  important 
illustrations  of  the  phenomena  under  consideration 
is  that  of  Professor  Flournoy,  of  Geneva,  Switzer- 
land. He  is  professor  of  psychology  in  the  college 
at  that  place.  He  had  heard  through  a  colleague, 
Professor  Lemaitre,  about  a  lady  who  was  appar- 
ently a  remarkable  "  medium  "  and  whom  he  calls 
by  the  pseudonym  Mile.  Helene  Smith,  and  having 
an  opportunity  to  witness  some  of  the  phenomena  in 
her  case,  took  them  under  investigation  and  published 
a  volume  regarding  them.  This  he  called  "  From 
India  to  the  Planet  Mars."  This  title  was  suggested 
by  the  variety  of  the  phenomena  purporting  to  char- 
acterize the  lady's  alleged  supernormal  powers.  The 
phenomena  took  the  form  of  alleged  spirit  communi- 
cations. Some  of  them  purported  to  come  from  a 
young  man  who  claimed  to  have  been  reincarnated 
on  the  planet  Mars.     Others  purported  to  come  from 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  287 

Marie  Antoinette.  Still  others  from  a  Hindu  prin- 
cess who  lived  at  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century 
or  thereabouts.  The  principal  communicator  claimed 
to  be  a  famous  European.  The  account  of  the  phe- 
nomena reads  like  a  romance,  and  Professor  Flour- 
noy  has  improved  his  opportunity  to  write  on  the 
subject  as  if  it  were  a  romance,  though  he  also  under- 
stands, and  treats  the  matter  as  a  scientific  problem. 
The  incidents  should  be  given  in  a  little  more  detail. 

The  four  most  striking  personalities  represented 
in  this  case  of  Mile.  Helene  Smith  have  been  indicated 
above.  One  gave  the  mythical  name  of  Leopold.  An 
accident  of  suggestion  induced  this  personality  to 
state  that  his  real  name  was  Joseph  Balsamo,  who  was 
the  famous  juggler  known  as  Count  Cagliostro,  who 
lived  from  1743  to  1795.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
famous  scoundrels  of  Europe.  Nothing  occurred  to 
establish  the  identity  of  this  personality,  and  the  only 
interest  it  has  is  its  simulation  of  a  spirit  without 
giving  any  facts  adequate  to  the  proof  of  such  a 
claim.  His  presence  was  manifested  in  three  ways: 
by  speech,  by  visions,  and  by  automatic  writing.  His 
communications  had  all  the  verisimilitude  of  reality. 
At  times  Mile.  Smith  could  see  an  apparition  of  him, 
and  at  others  heard  a  voice  claiming  to  be  his.  At 
still  other  times  communications  would  be  addressed 
to  her  or  to  others  through  automatic  writing,  with 
various  directions  in  regard  to  the  lady's  health  or 
conduct.  Flournoy  describes  the  phenomena  as  fol- 
lows: 

"  He  presents  himself,"  referring  to  Leopold  or 
Cagliostro,  "  before  her  endowed  with   corporeality 


288   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

like  that  of  other  people,  and  hides  objects  which 
are  behind  him  exactly  as  an  ordinary  individual  of 
flesh  and  bone  would  do.  He  talks  into  her  ears, 
generally  into  the  left,  in  a  characteristic  voice,  which 
appears  to  come  from  a  variable  distance,  sometimes 
about  six  feet  off,  sometimes  much  farther.  He  jars 
the  table  on  which  she  has  placed  her  immobile  arms, 
takes  hold  of  her  wrist  and  writes  with  her  hand, 
holding  the  pen  in  a  manner  unlike  her,  and  with  a 
handwriting  wholly  different  from  hers.  He  puts 
her  to  sleep  without  her  knowledge,  and  she  is  aston- 
ished to  learn  upon  waking  that  he  has  gesticulated 
with  her  arms  and  spoken  through  her  mouth  in  the 
deep  bass  voice  of  a  man,  with  an  Italian  accent  which 
has  nothing  in  common  with  the  clear  and  beautiful 
quality  of  her   feminine  voice. 

"  Moreover,  he  is  not  always  on  hand.  He  by  no 
means  answers  Helene's  appeals  on  all  occasions ;  is 
not  at  her  mercy;  far  from  it.  His  conduct,  his 
manifestations,  his  comings  and  goings  cannot  be 
predicted  with  any  certainty,  and  testify  to  an  au- 
tonomous being,  endowed  with  free  will,  often  other- 
wise occupied  or  absent  on  his  own  affairs,  which  do 
not  permit  of  his  holding  himself  constantly  at  the 
disposal  of  Mile.  Smith.  Sometimes  he  remains  for 
weeks  without  revealing  himself,  in  spite  of  her  wish- 
ing for  him,  and  calling  upon  him.  Then,  all  at 
once,  he  makes  his  appearance  when  she  least  expects 
him.  He  speaks  for  her  in  a  way  she  would  have  no 
idea  of  doing,  he  dictates  to  her  poems  of  which  she 
would  be  incapable.  He  replies  to  her  oral  or  mental 
questions,  converses  with  her,  and  discusses  various 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  289 

questions.  Like  a  wise  friend,  a  rational  mentor,  and 
as  one  seeing  things  from  a  higher  plane,  he  gives 
her  advice,  orders  even  sometimes  directly  opposite 
to  her  wishes  and  against  which  she  rebels.  He  con- 
soles her,  exhorts  her,  soothes,  encourages,  and  repri- 
mands her;  he  undertakes  against  her  the  defence 
of  persons  she  does  not  like,  and  pleads  the  cause  of 
those  who  are  antipathetic  to  her.  In  a  word,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  imagine  a  being  more  inde- 
pendent or  more  different  from  Mile.  Smith  herself, 
having  a  more  personal  character,  and  individuality 
more  marked,  or  a  more  certain  actual  existence." 

There  is  some  evidence  that  the  psychological 
origin  of  this  personality,  appearing  now  as  an  ap- 
parently independent  voice  or  again  as  an  apparition 
to  the  sense  of  sight,  was  a  fright  at  a  dog  which 
attacked  Mile.  Smith  when  ten  years  of  age.  The 
man  who  rescued  her  from  the  dog  wore  a  long 
brown  robe  with  flowing  sleeves  and  a  white  cross  on 
his  breast.  She  supposed  him  to  be  a  priest,  but  she 
was  too  much  frightened  to  observe  him  carefully, 
and  he  disappeared  so  soon  as  not  to  be  afterward 
identified.  But  this  Leopold  in  her  apparitions  is 
dressed  in  a  long  dark  robe,  though  he  also  has  other 
disguises  at  times.  But  probably  the  early  fright 
gave  the  impetus  to  subconscious  action,  which,  when 
systematized,  developed  this  personality,  and  the 
name  was  the  result  of  an  accident  not  now  traceable. 
But  as  remarked,  he  assumes  the  role  of  an  independ- 
ent being,  using  a  type  of  spelling  in  the  automatic 
writing  that  was  characteristic  of  the  last  century, 
and  also  employing  words  in  a  way  not  now  used. 


290    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

The  writing  itself,  however,  does  not  resemble  the 
script  of  the  historical  Cagliostro,  of  whom  some  let- 
ters survive.  He  undertakes,  too,  the  services  of  a 
physician,  diagnoses  diseases,  and  prescribes  for 
them.  But  throughout  he  does  not  seem  to  transcend 
the  possible  memory  and  capacities  of  Mile.  Smith. 
The  reader  interested  will  have  to  go  to  Flournoy's 
account  to  ascertain  the  incidents  of  most  dramatic 
character,  as  they  are  too  long  to  quote.  We  can 
here  concern  ourselves  only  with  the  most  general 
incidents  which  represent  the  allegation  of  independ- 
ent existence  and  spirit  communication,  but  which 
will  not  bear  examination  and  analysis  in  the  light  of 
such  a  supposition. 

The  Martian  phenomena  in  the  same  case  were 
more  complex.  They  were  developed  in  a  gradual 
manner,  and  apparently  in  such  a  way  as  to  illus- 
trate the  extremely  delicate  machinery  of  suggestion 
and  subliminal  association  and  synthesis.  Professor 
Lemaitre  had  once  incidentally  remarked  to  Mile. 
Smith  that  it  would  be  delightful  in  these  seances  to 
hear  from  some  of  the  planets.  The  first  hint  of  any 
attempt  at  this  representation  was  a  long  time  after- 
ward, as  if  the  subconscious  action  of  the  mind  had 
to  take  time  to  evolve  its  plans  and  systematic  pro- 
duction of  alleged  messages  from  a  planet.  At  a 
seance  Lemaitre  was  present,  and  Mile.  Smith  had  the 
sensation  of  leaving  her  body,  and  described  the  ex- 
perience as  thus  reported: 

"  She  felt  a  tremor  which  almost  caused  her  heart 
to  cease  beating,  after  which  it  seemed  to  her  as 
though  her  head  were  empty  and  as  if  she  were  no 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  291 

longer  in  the  body.  She  found  herself  in  a  dense 
fog,  which  changed  successively  from  blue  to  a  vivid 
rose  color,  to  gray,  and  then  to  black;  she  is  float- 
ing, she  says ;  and  the  table  supporting  itself  on  one 
leg,  seemed  to  express  a  very  curious  floating  move- 
ment. Then  she  sees  a  star  growing  larger,  always 
larger,  and  becomes  finally  '  as  large  as  our  house.' 
Helene  feels  that  she  is  ascending;  then  the  table 
gives,  by  raps,  '  Lemaitre,  that  which  you  have  so 
long  desired ! '  Mile.  Smith,  who  had  been  ill  at  ease, 
finds  herself  feeling  better;  she  distinguishes  three 
enormous  globes,  one  of  them  very  beautiful.  '  On 
what  am  I  walking.?  '  she  asks.  And  the  table  re- 
plies :  '  On  a  world  —  Mars.'  Helene  then  began  a 
description  of  all  the  strange  things  which  presented 
themselves  to  her  view,  which  caused  her  as  much 
surprise  as  amusement.  Carriages  without  horses  or 
wheels,  emitting  sparks  as  they  glided  by;  houses 
with  fountains  on  the  roof ;  a  cradle  having  for  cur- 
tains an  angel  made  of  iron  with  outstretched  wings, 
etc.  What  seemed  less  strange,  were  people  exactly 
like  the  inhabitants  of  our  earth,  save  that  both  sexes 
wore  the  same  costume,  formed  of  trousers  very 
ample,  and  a  long  blouse,  drawn  tight  about  the  waist 
and  decorated  with  various  designs.  The  child  in 
the  cradle  was  exactly  like  our  children,  according 
to  the  sketch  which  Helene  made  from  memory  after 
the  seance." 

Then  followed  an  alleged  message  from  a  person 
who  purported  to  be  the  son  of  a  lady  sitter,  and  who 
finally  claimed  to  be  reincarnated  on  the  planet  Mars. 
Some  conversation  was  held  with  him,  and  Mile.  Smith 


292    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

returned  to  normal  consciousness  with  the  same  ex- 
periences which  she  had  as  she  went  into  the  trance, 
except  in  the  reverse  order. 

The  hallucinatory  character  of  these  phenomena 
is  apparent  to  any  student  of  abnormal  psychology, 
as  there  is  nothing  probably  or  verifiably  supernor- 
mal in  them.  But  soon  afterward  there  began  a  vast 
system  of  communications,  which  consisted  in  giving 
a  complete  alphabet  of  the  Martians  and  many  sam- 
ples of  their  language.  The  following  is  an  illus- 
tration which  accompanied  the  vision  of  a  house  on 
Mars: 

Dode  ne  ci  haudan  te  mess  meche  metiche  Astane 
ke  de  me  veche. 

This  was  afterward  translated  into  French  which 
means  in  English :  "  This  is  the  house  of  the  great 
man  Astane,  whom  thou  hast  seen." 

Sometimes  this  language  was  given  in  automatic 
writing,  and  sometimes  heard  as  if  uttered,  that  is, 
it  was  an  auditory  hallucination.  Examination  of  it 
shows  great  consistency  in  the  use  of  the  terms.  The 
same  terms  were  always  used  for  the  same  ideas, 
though  the  work  extended  over  long  periods.  But  it 
is  apparent  in  the  critical  examination  of  it  that  it 
has  decided  structural  resemblances  to  the  French 
language,  a  fact  which  makes  it  absurd  to  suppose 
that  it  is  anything  but  a  subliminal  fabrication  by 
the  mind  of  Mile.  Smith.  Leopold  figured  in  some 
of  these  phenomena,  but  most  of  them  purported  to 
be  influenced  by  the  deceased  and  reincarnated  son 
of  the  lady  mentioned.  But  there  had  been  no  evi- 
dence of  the  supernormal  in  his  impersonation.    The 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  293 

suggestion  of  it  came  from  the  lady  herself,  who 
recognized  certain  resemblances  in  the  manner  of 
Mile.  Smith  and  that  of  her  son,  and  the  consequence 
was  that  this  mimicking  subliminal  machinery  took 
up  the  hint,  and  the  claim  was  advanced  that  the  com- 
munications were  made  by  the  deceased  son.  The  im- 
personation, however,  throughout  is  perfect  in  so  far 
as  the  superficial  characteristics  are  concerned. 

The  impersonation  of  Marie  Antoinette  was  such 
as  could  easily  have  been  done  by  any  one  familiar 
with  the  history  of  that  unfortunate  queen.  Nothing 
bearing  upon  her  identity  was  apparent  in  the  phe- 
nomena save  the  mannerisms,  which  all  who  are  famil- 
iar with  her  life  and  character  might  imagine,  and 
they  were  of  the  slightest  importance.  The  imper- 
sonation of  the  Hindu  princess  had  more  interest  and 
presented  some  apparent  evidence  at  least  of  the 
supernormal.  But  this  would  not  bear  close  exami- 
nation in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  the  few  verifiable 
Hindu  words  written  or  spoken  by  Mile.  Smith  and 
purporting  to  come  from  the  princess  might  possibly 
have  been  seen  by  her  in  a  book  in  the  library  of  her 
own  town,  which  contained  the  facts  in  question. 

Professor  Floumoy  makes  it  clear  that  there  is  no 
reason  to  suspect  the  phenomena  of  being  conscious 
productions  of  Mile.  Smith's  fancy  or  imagination, 
but  purely  the  result  of  subliminal  mental  processes 
which  will  systematically  follow,  at  times,  the  main 
mental  interests  of  the  normal  consciousness.  With 
this  fact  in  view  we  have  one  of  the  finest  illustra- 
tions extant  of  systematic  simulation  of  spiritistic 
phenomena  taking  a  more  definite  and  plausible  char- 


294    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

acter  in  this  case  than  the  previous  instance  quoted. 
But  it  fails  in  the  fundamental  feature  of  the  super- 
normal, and  must  be  classified  with  secondary  person- 
ality. Professor  Floumoy  thinks  that  there  were 
supernormal  phenomena  associated  with  these  imper- 
sonalizations.  But  he  does  not  reproduce  the  evidence 
of  it,  and  hence  his  opinion  cannot  count.  He  is  very 
careful  to  give  all  the  facts  and  evidence  that  he  can 
obtain  to  prove  the  influence  of  secondary  personality, 
but  he  has  nothing  but  assertion  for  the  supernormal. 
Some  other  incidents  in  the  career  of  the  lady  un- 
doubtedly suggest,  though  they  may  not  prove,  the 
existence  of  the  supernormal.  But  I  do  not  have  these 
in  mind  in  my  remarks  at  present  regarding  the 
supernormal.  I  would  say  also  that  if  it  were  not  for 
Professor  Flournoy's  evident  thoroughness  in  his 
treatment  of  the  psychological  aspect  of  the  case  in 
regard  to  secondary  personality,  his  allusions  to 
supernormal  accompaniments  would  have  to  be  ridi- 
culed. I  am  willing  to  accord  them  consideration  in 
the  light  of  his  evident  sobriety  in  treating  the  phe- 
nomena as  subliminal,  but,  if  he  was  satisfied  that 
there  were  any  incidents  that  were  supernormal,  and 
associated  with  these  undoubted  creations  of  second- 
ary personality  he  should  have  been  as  careful  to 
produce  the  evidence  for  his  view.  As  it  stands,  one 
can  only  minimize  his  statements  in  regard  to  the 
supernormal,  and  praise  him  for  his  insight  into  sec- 
ondary personality. 

The  reader  of  this  short  account,  however,  will  ob- 
tain a  very  inadequate  conception  of  its  interest  if  he 
leaves  Professor  Flournoy's  book  unread.     It  repre- 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  295 

sents  a  most  instructing  instance  of  phenomena  which 
superficially  indicate  the  influence  of  outside  and 
transcendental  agencies,  but  which  vanish  at  the  touch 
of  scientific  analysis,  at  least  as  evidence  of  super- 
normal influences.  They  make  very  clear  what  the 
rigid  criteria  must  be  for  proving  the  influence  of 
outside  minds  upon  the  organisms  of  the  living. 

I  have  also  a  case  somewhat  similar  to  that  of 
Flournoy.  It  involves  alleged  communications  from 
the  planet  Mars.  It  contains  a  description  of  a 
palace,  with  curtains  that  hang  in  it,  gardens  in  front 
of  it,  mountains,  cloud,  and  sky  in  the  background, 
an  air-ship,  an  embroidered  dress  with  a  description 
of  the  colors  in  it,  and  some  account  of  the  inhabitants 
with  their  hieroglyphic  language.  This  was  followed 
by  alleged  communications  from  a  man  calling  himself 
Harrison  Clarke,  who  gave  a  specific  account  of  his 
life  and  his  death  at  the  battle  of  Shiloh.  No  trace 
of  such  a  person  could  be  found  anywhere,  or  in  the 
history  of  the  battle  with  its  list  of  dead.  I  shall 
not  detail,  however,  the  incidents  of  the  case,  as  there 
have  been  unquestionably  supernormal  phenomena  in 
the  course  of  it.  The  Martian  incidents  are  men- 
tioned because  they  duplicate  that  interest  in  the 
planet  which  the  public  has  always  shown  regarding 
its  possible  habitation.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  of  the  reality  of  the  communications  which, 
in  spite  of  their  superficial  claims  to  spirit  origin,  are 
a  warning  to  the  student  of  such  phenomena,  and 
against  hasty  speculations  regarding  their  causes. 
The  evidence  for  the  supernormal  must  be  so  stringent 
in  its  character  and  so  exempt  from  the  suspicion  of 


296    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

subconscious  action  or  origin  in  the  mind  of  the  sub- 
ject through  which  it  is  manifested  that  no  question 
of  its  outside  agency  can  be  raised.  That  seldom  oc- 
curs. It  is  not  enough  to  have  either  the  honesty  of 
the  subject  guaranteed  or  the  fact  that  the  phenomena 
are  not  consciously  produced.  Simulation  of  external 
influences  is  so  common  to  the  subconscious  functions 
of  the  mind  that  only  a  peculiar  type  of  phenomena 
will  even  suggest  supernormal  agency.  The  type  of 
fact  must  be  such  as  proves  telepathy  or  that  form 
of  intelligence  which  would  lead  us  at  least  to  suspect 
discarnate  agency.  To  suggest  telepathy  the  phe- 
nomena must  be  a  large  number  of  specific  coinci- 
dences between  the  thoughts  of  two  living  persons,  so 
definite  and  complex  that  chance  and  guessing  cannot 
be  attributed  to  the  agents.  To  suggest  spiritistic 
agency  the  facts  must  be  such  as  a  living  person 
would  exact  to  prove  the  identity  of  a  friend  at  the 
other  end  of  a  telegraph  wire,  and  facts  not  known 
to  the  person  who  delivers  them  as  having  a  "  super- 
natural "  source. 

The  instances  which  I  have  quoted  do  not  answer 
to  such  demands.  No  matter  what  associated  evi- 
dences of  the  supernormal  may  exist  in  the  same  or 
other  cases,  the  phenomena  illustrating  the  peculiar 
mental  functions  of  the  subject  are  not  instances  of 
that  supernormal,  and,  whatever  their  explanation, 
exhibit  the  mental  conditions  through  which  all  super- 
normal phenomena  have  probably  to  be  produced. 
Means  will  have  to  be  obtained  for  discriminating 
between  what  is  the  product  of  the  subject's  mind  and 
what  is  instigated  from  without.     Hence  secondary 


SUBCONSCIOUS    ACTION  297 

personality  must  represent  what  the  mind  will  evolve 
from  its  own  resources  when  its  subKminal  or  un- 
conscious action  is  once  set  into  motion.  This  con- 
ception of  such  phenomena  will  indicate  how  near  to 
the  supernormal  secondary  personality  may  come 
without  actually  being  it,  and  hence  while  not  consti- 
tuting evidence  of  it,  may  show  the  subjective  agen- 
cies for  the  revelation  of  the  supernormal  when  the 
facts  justify  its  supposition.  But  the  gauntlet  which 
the  supernormal  has  to  run  is  a  severe  one. 

It  will  appear  to  one  class  of  readers  that  I  am  dis- 
paraging the  belief  in  spiritistic  agency,  and  to  an- 
other class  that  I  am  explaining  alleged  supernormal 
phenomena  in  a  perfectly  natural  way.  Perhaps  both 
classes  would  agree  as  to  the  antagonistic  tendencies 
of  this  discussion  of  secondary  personality  to  the 
existence  of  the  supernormal.  But  if  this  is  the  as- 
sumption I  make  haste  to  disillusion  both  of  it.  The 
skeptic  has  apparently  still  to  learn  that  the  phenom- 
ena of  secondary  personality,  while  they  indicate  de- 
cided limitations  to  the  supernormal,  do  not  exclude 
the  use  of  subliminal  conditions  for  the  transmission 
of  it ;  and  the  ready  believer  in  spirits  has  still  to 
learn  that  these  agencies  are  not  so  frequently  active 
as  he  imagines.  I  am  here  only  insisting  that  we  can- 
not aflPord  to  be  fooled  in  so  important  a  subject  as 
modifying  the  long-standing  laws  of  normal  psychol- 
ogy or  accepting  transcendental  influences  when  the 
evidence  is  not  sufficient.  The  belief  in  them  is  too 
passionately  interested  in  illusions  to  be  permitted 
easy  victory,  and  I,  for  one,  welcome  the  difficulties 
and  objections  to  such  a  belief  as  a  means  of  restrain- 


298    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ing  speculations  that  do  more  harm  than  good  in 
human  hfe.  I  know  the  good  that  may  come  from  ex- 
tending our  views  of  the  meaning  of  the  universe,  but 
this  knowledge  must  not  be  extended  at  the  expense  of 
rational  thinking.  Reasons  will  be  abundant  in  the 
sequel  of  scientific  inquiry  for  thus  limiting  the  claims 
of  hasty  theories,  and  they  will  all  be  in  favor  of  the 
metaphysical  significance  of  individuality  and  the 
ethical  importance  of  restricted  knowledge  of  the 
transcendental.  In  the  meantime  patience  with  scien- 
tific inquiry  is  the  highest  duty,  though  it  deprives 
us  of  many  an  illusory  conception  of  evidence. 


CHAPTER   X 


MIND    AND    BODY 


There  are  two  more  or  less  distinct  problems  in  the 
question  regarding  the  relation  between  mind  and 
body.  They  are  the  speculative  and  the  practical 
problem.  The  speculative  problem  is  philosophical 
and  religious  and  the  practical  is  therapeutic  and 
ethical.  The  speculative  problem  grew  out  of  the 
original  controversy  of  Spiritualism  with  Material- 
ism. The  second  is  a  modem  question,  probably 
initiated  by  idealism  and  taken  up  seriously  by  vari- 
ous schools  of  believers  in  the  efficiency  of  conscious- 
ness in  healing  diseases.  I  shall  discuss  the  two  prob- 
lems separately. 

The  controversy  between  Spiritualism,  using  this 
term  in  its  old  philosophic  and  respectable  sense,  and 
Materialism  was  whether  man  had  any  soul  or  not, 
and  whether  it  survived  death.  Those  who  believed 
that  there  was  a  soul  conceived  it  as  a  tenant  of  the 
body,  and  so  described  it,  so  that  death  was  but  a 
transition  from  this  habitation  to  another  life.  This 
other  life  was  conceived  either  as  a  reincarnation  or 
as  the  carrying  with  our  consciousness  the  ethereal 
organism  which  we  already  possessed  in  the  physical 
life.     Plato  adopted  reincarnation  as  his  expression 

299 


300   I'SYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

of  the  doctrine,  Christianity  adopted  the  latter,  ex- 
cept as  it  came  to  believe  in  a  physical  resurrection. 
But  both  types  of  thinkers  thought  of  the  soul  as  an 
inhabitant  of  the  body  and  removable  from  it.  The 
materialist  conceived  the  problem  in  two  ways.  He 
originally  admitted,  as  among  the  Epicureans,  that 
the  soul  was  a  fine  material  or  ethereal  organism, 
matter  of  fine  type  and  ether  not  being  distinguish- 
able. But  he  claimed  that  this  ethereal  organism  per- 
ished at  death.  The  later  materialist  did  not  speak 
of  a  soul  at  all,  except  as  a  synonym  of  conscious- 
ness, and  treated  consciousness  as  a  function  of  the 
physical  organism.  It  followed  as  a  necessity  from 
this  conception  that  it  vanished  at  death  as  other 
physical  functions  of  the  same  organism.  The  older 
form  of  materialism  was  adjustable  to  the  concep- 
tions of  Christianity,  as  the  idea  of  the  spiritual  res- 
urrection probably  came  from  it.  This  view  was  quite 
identical,  as  intimated  above,  with  the  notion  of  ten- 
ancy in  the  body.  The  one  conception  which  thus 
became  irreconcilably  opposed  to  survival  after  death 
was  that  of  modern  materialism,  which  conceived 
consciousness  as  a  function  of  the  physical  body,  and 
there  was  in  this  no  need  for  thinking  or  speaking  of 
a  "  soul "  as  a  substance,  if  the  term  was  to  be  used 
at  all.  Hence  it  came  to  denote  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness  as  distinct  from  physical  phenomena. 
The  consequence  was  that  the  problem  of  the  relation 
between  "  soul  and  body  "  came  to  be  one  affecting 
the  question  of  its  real  existence  and  survival  after 
death.  If  this  relation  were  conceived  as  that  of  a 
tenant  or  substance  coexisting  with  and  as  at  least 


MIND   AND    BODY  301 

in  some  respects  influencing  bodily  actions,  there  was 
at  least  a  presumption  that  it  did  not  disappear  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  body,  this  last  being  an  un- 
questioned fact.  The  appeal  could  be  made  to  the  ad- 
mitted indestructibility  of  substance,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  atoms  or  of  all  substance.  If  it  were  not  con- 
ceived as  a  tenant  or  substance,  but  as  a  phenomenal 
function,  like  digestion  or  circulation,  it  presumably 
or  probably  perished  as  do  these  similar  functions. 
The  controversy,  therefore,  became  one  to  determine 
whether  personality  survived  death  or  not,  with  one 
school  affirming  and  the  other  denying  it.  But  both 
admitted,  hypothetically,  the  position  of  the  other  on 
the  condition  that  the  assumptions  were  correct  about 
the  nature  of  the  soul.  The  materialist  admitted 
readily  enough  that  the  soul  would  be  imperishable,  if 
it  were  an  indivisible  substance,  but  he  held  that  it  was 
not  a  substance  at  all,  but  a  phenomenon,  a  function 
of  the  organism.  The  spiritualist  admitted  as  read- 
ily that  the  "  soul "  or  consciousness  perished,  if  it 
was  a  phenomenon,  but  he  held  that  it  was  a  sub- 
stance and  came  under  the  laws  of  substance.  Con- 
sequently the  whole  interest  of  the  question  came  to 
be  concentrated  in  the  issue  whether  personality  sur- 
vived or  not. 

Two  schools  in  Greek  thought  maintained  that 
"  soul "  was  substance,  and  these  two  schools  consti- 
tuted the  whole  reflective  spirit  of  Greece.  They 
were  the  Platonic,  or  the  Idealists,  and  the  Epicurean, 
or  the  Materialists.  Plato  and  his  followers  held  that 
it  was  a  "  universal "  substance,  which  constituted  the 
permanent  elements  in  the  forms  of  life  about  us,  and 


302    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

so  was  reimbodied  in  different  generations  and  types 
of  organic  life.  It  was  thus  imperishable,  but  lost 
its  individuality  or  personality.  The  transitions  or 
reincarnations  did  not  carry  with  them  the  individual 
characteristics  of  any  previous  embodiment,  but  only 
the  effects  of  previous  experience.  The  Epicureans 
gave  some  individuality  to  the  soul,  but  it  was  the 
individuality  of  a  complex  organism  which  perished 
at  death,  according  to  their  assumptions  of  what  must 
characterize  complex  organisms.  But  as  they  held  to 
the  imperishable  nature  of  substance  in  its  elements 
they  opened  the  way  to  two  replies  to  their  view. 
First,  they  had  no  sensible  evidence  that  the  fine  ethe- 
real organism  perished  with  the  body.  In  fact  they 
had  no  sensible  evidence  that  it  existed  coincidentally 
with  the  body  as  a  tenant  of  it,  and  so  their  view  that 
it  perished  with  it  was  a  pure  assumption  unsubstan- 
tiated by  any  evidence  whatever.  Secondly,  their  op- 
ponents had  only  to  maintain  that  the  soul  was  an  in- 
divisible element  to  bring  it  under  the  assumption  re- 
garding the  indestructibility  of  substance  to  guar- 
antee its  permanence.  This  Tertullian  did,  and  tried 
to  establish  the  Christian  belief  in  immortality  upon 
a  basis  which  the  materialist  could  not  dispute,  unless 
he  turned  away  from  his  method  of  speculation  to  the 
scientific  one  of  evidence. 

But  before  Tertullian  advanced  his  position  the 
Christian  had  started  with  the  evidential  method  in  his 
assertion  of  the  resurrection  against  the  claims  of  the 
materialist,  and  in  doing  so  he  assumed  the  material- 
ist's doctrine  of  a  fine  ethereal  organism,  or  spiritual 
body.     It  was  not  the  materialist,  but  the  anti-mate- 


MIND    AND    BODY 

rialist  that  first  appealed  to  evidence,  and  it  may  con- 
duce to  clearness  in  the  understanding  of  the  histori- 
cal movement  on  this  issue  to  briefly  outline  the 
development  of  it. 

The  materialists,  as  I  have  said,  believed  in  an  or- 
ganism associated  with  the  body,  and  which  they 
agreed  to  consider  the  "  soul."  But  as  they  believed 
that  all  complex  organisms  perished,  they  held  that 
the  soul  perished  also.  The  first  attack  on  their  sys- 
tem was  the  one  mentioned  above.  It  was  that  there 
was  no  sensible  evidence  of  this  disappearance  in  the 
nature  of  things.  This  attack  was  not  made  in  so 
many  words,  but  was  the  assumption  lying  at  the  base 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  whether  we  regard 
it  as  physical  or  spiritual.  To  controvert  that  doc- 
trine, all  that  was  necessary  was  to  show  cases  of 
actual  "  rising  from  the  dead."  The  Greek  theory 
of  gravitation  was  not  like  ours,  but  maintained  that 
matter  rose  and  fell  of  its  own  nature.  Heavy  mat- 
ter went  downward,  light  matter  rose  upward,  the 
one  toward  the  earth  and  the  other  heavenward.  Now 
as  the  soul  was  supposed  to  be  a  fine  ethereal  matter, 
it  would  naturally  rise  when  released  from  its  at- 
tachment to  the  grosser  body.  Thus  a  theory  of 
the  resurrection  could  be  established,  at  least  a  priori 
on  the  basis  of  materialism  itself.  And  that  such  a 
view  did  exist  before  it  was  asserted  of  any  particular 
individual  can  be  seen  in  the  recorded  controversy 
between  the  Sadducees  and  Pharisees,  the  one  affirm- 
ing and  the  other  denying  the  "  resurrection."  All, 
therefore,  that  was  necessary  was  to  appeal  to  the 
phenomena  of  apparitions   in  order  to   satisfy  the 


304    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

terms  of  the  materialist  himself.  It  would  be  neces- 
sary, of  course,  to  guarantee  that  the  apparition  had 
some  other  meaning  than  an  illusion  or  an  halluci- 
nation, but  in  the  early  period  of  reflection  this  issue 
had  not  been  worked  out  scientifically,  and  we  know 
from  history  that  the  belief  in  apparitions  exercised 
a  powerful  influence  upon  belief  in  the  "  supernat- 
ural," and  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  the  phe- 
nomena were  real  in  order  to  admit  their  influence 
on  speculation.  The  belief  in  their  occurrence  was 
sufiicient  to  start  a  philosophic  controversy,  and  in 
the  controversies  of  the  time  there  is  evidence  that 
the  phenomena  of  apparitions  had  their  influence  in 
shaping  conviction  on  a  future  life,  whether  we 
choose  to  credit  or  discredit  their  nature.  If  then 
any  particular  individual  should  be  represented  in 
an  apparition,  the  fact  would  naturally  give  rise  to 
a  contradiction  of  the  materialist's  position.  It 
would  suggest,  or  be  taken  to  prove,  the  resurrection. 
Now  suppose  some  one  or  more  persons  should  have 
had  an  apparition  of  Christ  after  his  death,  it  is 
easy  to  see  what  use  could  be  made  of  the  fact.  It 
would  not  be  necessary  for  us  in  this  discussion  to 
maintain  that  such  an  apparition  was  real.  We 
might  admit  with  Renan  that  it  was  an  hallucination 
due  to  excitement.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to  suppose 
that  some  experience  occurred  which  could  be  taken, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  for  an  apparition  of  reality. 
That  such  stories  did  rise  concerning  Christ  is  ap- 
parent in  the  experience  of  St.  Paul,  of  Christ  walk- 
ing on  the  water,  and  of  his  appearance  to  the  disci- 
ples in  the  closed  room,  and  possibly  as  "  the  con- 


MIND    AND    BODY  305 

sciousness  of  a  presence  "  to  his  disciples  on  the  way 
to  Emmaus.  A  similar  phenomenon  is  reported  in 
the  appearance  of  Moses  and  Elias  to  Christ  himself. 
Suppose  this  to  be  mythical,  as  we  might  well  do, 
and  suppose  that  the  others  were  incidents  due  to  ex- 
cited imaginations,  the  case  would  not  be  in  the  least 
altered  regarding  the  use  which  could  be  made  of 
them  against  the  materialistic  theory  by  those  who 
actually  believed  in  the  reality  of  the  phenomena. 
And  we  have  the  evidence  that  they  were  so  used 
triumphantly  to  dispute  materialism.  The  appeal 
was  to  facts,  not  to  speculative  assumptions,  and  it 
matters  not  for  the  efficiency  of  the  facts  whether 
they  were  actually  what  they  were  taken  to  be  or  not. 
They  were  believed  to  be  real  as  they  were  experi- 
enced, and  were  used  on  that  assumption  of  their 
character. 

But  various  intellectual  influences  conspired  to 
give  the  belief  at  the  time  the  form  of  a  physical 
resurrection,  and  this  the  resurrection  of  the  grosser 
body.  I  do  not  require  to  enter  into  the  question 
whether  they  were  valid  influences  or  not.  They 
probably  arose  out  of  the  accepted  theory  that  the 
fine  ethereal  organism  of  the  materialists  was  "  mat- 
ter." With  antiquity  "  spirit "  was  not  distinct  in 
kind  from  "  matter."  It  was  a  fine  "  matter,"  and 
so  could  be  denominated  as  physical,  and  though 
there  were  influences  to  cultivate  the  idea  that  spirit 
was  immaterial,  the  materialistic  position  could  be 
used,  especially  in  the  light  of  apparitions,  to  favor 
the  idea  that  the  resurrection  was  "  physical,"  because 
it  was  of  the  fine  ethereal  organism,  and  a  dispute 


306    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

might  arise  as  to  whether  it  was  "  physical "  or 
"  spiritual "  on  the  basis  of  the  rising  distinction 
between  matter  and  spirit.  The  common  mind  which 
was  not  familiar  with  the  philosophic  conceptions 
would  tend  to  the  doctrine  of  the  grosser  physical 
resurrection,  as  reflected  in  the  allegation  of  it.  The 
philosophic  mind  would  tend  toward  the  other  view, 
as  we  find  in  St.  Paul,  who  distinguished  between  the 
"  natural  "  body  which  perished  and  the  "  spiritual  " 
body  which  arose  from  the  dead.  Then,  when  spirit 
was  supposed  to  be  wholly  material,  as  it  was  to  be 
so  conceived,  any  form  of  "  physical "  or  "  bodily  " 
resurrection  would  come  to  mean  the  grosser  physical 
body,  the  other  conception  of  it  as  fine  "  matter " 
having  been  exchanged  for  "  spirit "  or  immaterial 
substance. 

Now  as  the  materialists  had  to  drop  their  concep- 
tion of  a  fine  material  or  ethereal  organism  in  order 
to  save  their  denial  of  immortality,  the  interest  of 
Christianity  was  not  particularly  served  by  further 
appeal  to  facts;  and  as  on  the  other  hand  the  doc- 
trine of  the  physical  resurrection  prevailed  in  human 
belief,  the  philosophic  controversy  was  between  a 
philosophy  which  defended  the  physical  resurrection 
of  the  grosser  type  and  the  philosophy  which  had 
abandoned  the  view  of  an  ethereal  organism  and  as- 
serted the  phenomenal  nature  of  consciousness.  That 
is  to  say,  in  abandoning  the  ethereal  organism,  mate- 
rialism accepted  the  view  that  consciousness  was  a 
function  of  the  organism.  Instead,  therefore,  of  in- 
sisting upon  the  appeal  to  facts  of  experience  in  its 
defence,  Christian  philosophy  virtually  admitted  that 


MIND   AND    BODY  ^07 

consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  bodily  organism, 
and  resorted  to  the  physical  resurrection  to  support 
its  belief  in  a  future  life.  This  of  course  was  the 
position  of  the  common  mind.  Other  philosophers 
slightly  altered  this  view,  and  maintained  that  the 
soul  was  a  substance  different  in  kind  from  matter 
and  inhabiting  the  body  as  more  or  less  necessary  for 
its  activity,  and  having  to  succumb  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  accepted  the  resurrection  there  held, 
and  so  supposed  that  the  soul  would  again  inhabit 
its  original  organism.  The  whole  conception  of  the 
"  spiritual "  resurrection  and  the  appeal  to  facts 
was  thus  lost  and  speculative  philosophy  assumed 
to  direct  human  thought  in  other  directions,  namely, 
in  those  of  an  immaterial  substance  and  the  idea  of  a 
physical  resurrection.  This  view  ruled  history  for 
many  centuries,  in  fact,  down  to  the  present  time, 
with  occasional  differences  among  small  groups  of 
thinkers.  At  no  time  did  it  work  itself  out  into  per- 
fect clearness.  It  was  always  compromising  with  the 
idea  of  a  physical  resurrection,  which  was  a  dogma  of 
the  Church.  Hence  philosophy,  which  had  always 
to  be  ancillary  to  theology,  as  a  condition  of  its  ex- 
istence, had  to  admit  or  assume  the  physical  resur- 
rection, whatever  view  it  took  of  the  soul,  and  as  the 
physical  resurrection  gave  so  much  trouble  to  rational 
thought,  the  most  clearly  defined  controversy  was 
between  materialism,  which  denied  the  existence  of 
spiritual  substance,  and  the  opposing  philosophy, 
which  affirmed  it,  with  the  latter  fluctuating  between 
an  idealistic  interpretation  of  the  soul  and  what  was 
no  better  than  a  materialistic  view  of  it,  in  so  far  as 


308    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

its  conception  of  the  dependence  of  consciousness  on 
the  organism  was  concerned.  Let  me  summarize  the 
case. 

Materialism  (1)  abandoned  the  idea  of  an  ethereal 
organism  as  too  much  of  a  concession  to  spiritual- 
ism, and  (2)  set  up  the  phenomenal  or  functional 
nature  of  consciousness,  making  it  an  activity  of  the 
grosser  instead  of  the  finer  organism.  The  atomic 
doctrine  and  the  laws  of  chemistry  helped  this  view 
to  become  clear.  Spiritualism  (1)  set  up  an  antith- 
esis or  opposition  in  kind  between  matter  and  spirit 
or  mind,  tending  to  create  the  idea  that  spirit  was 
spaceless,  and  so  excluding  the  "  spiritual  body " 
doctrine,  (2)  accepted  the  functional  nature  of  con- 
sciousness though  making  it  a  phenomenon  of  spirit, 
and  (3)  handicapped  its  own  position  by  concession 
to  the  theological  dogma  of  the  bodily  resurrection. 
Thus  the  first  feature  of  its  position  was  inconceiv- 
able to  the  common  mind  and  the  third  was  incon- 
ceivable to  the  intelligent  and  philosophic  mind,  while 
the  second  partly  agreed  with  the  materialist,  namely, 
that  consciousness  ^ras  functional  in  its  nature.  The 
difference  was  that  materialism  was  clear  in  its  con* 
ception  of  the  relation  between  consciousness  and  the 
organism,  while  spiritualism  was  not  sure  of  any 
other  subject  for  it.  Consequently,  after  the  aban- 
donment of  the  Pauline  idea  of  the  spiritual  body, 
the  controversy  was  between  philosophy  or  science 
and  superstition,  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  the 
two  functional  views  of  consciousness,  on  the  other; 
one  making  it  a  phenomenon  of  the  organism  and  the 
other  of  some  other  subject  or  substance  which  it  did 


MIND    AND    BODY  309 

not  define  in  spatial  terms.  In  both  forms  of  the 
dispute,  however,  the  issue  was  whether  the  organ- 
ism was  or  was  not  the  subject  of  consciousness,  the 
materiaUst  affirming  and  the  spirituaHst  denying 
that  it  was. 

As  long  as  the  philosophic  mind  maintained  the 
created  and  phenomenal  nature  of  matter,  which  it 
did  for  many  centuries  because  the  Church  was  able 
to  suppress  materialistic  behefs,  materialism  could 
not  make  any  progress.  Philosophy  had  held  that 
both  the  sensible  and  the  supersensible  material  world 
were  created,  and  so  had  to  set  up  "  spirit "  as  the 
creator.  That  is,  it  maintained  that  the  world  as 
seen  by  the  senses  and  the  world  beyond  the  senses, 
namely,  the  atomic  world,  were  ephemeral  and  sub- 
ject to  the  will  of  God,  or  the  immaterial  and  spirit- 
ual background  of  things.  As  long  as  this  view 
could  be  sustained,  materialism  had  but  little  chance 
to  survive.  But  the  discovery  of  the  indestructibility 
of  matter  and  the  conservation  of  energy  changed 
all  this.  They  again  restored  the  idea  that  matter 
was  permanent  and  not  phenomenal,  and  material- 
ism, lacking  evidence  that  consciousness  was  inde- 
pendent of  organism,  made  it  a  phenomenon  of  mat- 
ter, so  that  the  existence  of  God  and  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  were  directly  attacked  by  one  blow.  Mate- 
rialism strengthened  its  fortress,  and  the  relation 
between  mind  and  body  was  conceived  as  that  of  a 
function  to  a  dissolvable  subject.  It  took  up  both 
a  philosophic  and  a  scientific  position.  Its  philo- 
sophic position  was  based  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  and  its  scientific  position  upon 


310    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

evidential  phenomena.  Both  the  philosophic  and  the 
scientific  view  assumed  a  causal  relation  between 
mind  and  body,  or  mental  and  physical  phenomena, 
and  subordinated  the  former  to  the  latter  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  imply  the  transient  and  phenomenal 
nature  of  consciousness. 

The  philosophic  view  of  materialism  interpreted 
this  causal  relation  after  the  conservation  of  energy, 
and  so  tacitly  or  explicitly  denied  the  existence  of 
really  spiritual  phenomena  of  any  kind.  It  had 
logically  to  reduce  consciousness  to  a  mode  of  motion, 
and  as  this  had  been  denied  by  the  spiritualists,  the 
conclusion  most  natural  was  that  consciousness  per- 
ished at  death,  as  did  other  functions  of  a  motional 
sort  in  the  organism.  The  conservation  of  energy 
had  interpreted  consciousness  as  one  of  the  mechan- 
ical series  and  implied  that  it  had  the  same  destiny. 

The  scientific  view,  while  it  also  assumed  a  causal 
nexus  between  the  physical  and  mental  series,  did 
not  require  to  apply  the  conception  lying  at  the  basis 
of  the  conservation  of  energy,  but  remained  content 
with  the  view  that  consciousness  depended  upon  the 
physical  for  its  existence.  To  prove  this  it  pointed 
to  the  variations  in  the  integrity  of  consciousness 
according  to  the  condition  of  the  physical  organism. 
An  accident  or  blow,  a  disease,  lesion,  or  other  dis- 
turbance in  the  organism  sufficed  to  suspend  con- 
sciousness as  they  suspended  circulation,  temperature, 
digestion,  or  other  functions  of  the  body,  making 
consciousness  depend,  not  on  a  spiritual  subject,  but 
upon  the  material  organism.  Then  it  had  the  fact 
that  consciousness  is  known  only  in  connection  with 


MIND    AND    BODY  311 

the  physical  organism  and  is  not  known  apart  from 
it,  discarding  all  reference  or  consideration  of  the 
phenomena  examined  in  psychical  research,  and 
hence  it  concluded  that  consciousness  is  a  function 
of  the  organism,  just  as  we  should  and  do  explain  the 
rain  by  the  clouds.  That  is,  rain  is  always  associated 
with  the  clouds,  and  when  the  clouds  are  not  present 
it  does  not  rain.  We  infer  that  clouds  are  the  con- 
dition of  rainfall.  So  if  consciousness  is  associated 
with  a  physical  organism  and  we  do  not  find  it  pres- 
ent or  existing  when  the  organism  is  not  present,  we 
naturally  infer  that  it  is  a  function  of  the  organism 
with  which  its  known  existence  is  connected. 

The  philosophic  materialist,  in  his  application  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  did  not 
see  that  it  might  recoil  upon  himself.  The  spiritual- 
ist had  maintained  a  theory  of  creation  and  so  could 
believe  in  the  introduction  of  new  forces  into  the  uni- 
verse. But  the  conservation  of  energy  at  least 
apparently  denied  this,  and  so  seemed  to  establish 
the  materialist's  position.  And  then  again,  the  con- 
servation of  energy  applied  the  principle  of  causality 
between  phenomena  in  a  way  to  maintain  that  all 
changes  of  matter  and  motion  were  made  without 
gain  or  loss  in  the  total  amount  of  them.  Neither 
increase  nor  decrease  of  energy  was  possible,  accord- 
ing to  its  doctrine.  Hence  when  it  came  to  apply 
its  conception  to  the  relation  between  physical  and 
mental  phenomena  it  had  either  to  regard  conscious- 
ness as  a  part  of  the  effect  initiated  by  the  cause 
or  regard  it  as  an  inexplicable  "  epi-phenomenon." 
The  latter  alternative  was  to  give  up  materialism: 


312    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  former  was  to  interpret  consciousness  as  a  mode 
of  motion.  Traditional  conceptions  had  maintained 
that,  if  this  be  the  case,  it  was  perishable.  But  the 
materialist  here  forgot  that,  in  that  conception  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  which  makes  cause  and 
effect  the  same  in  kind,  in  order  to  preserve  the  iden- 
tity of  quantity  in  energy  with  change,  he  logically 
had  to  retain  consciousness  in  the  world  as  well  as 
motion,  and  that  we  could  as  well  eliminate  motion  as 
mental  facts.  As  far  as  he  assumed  any  identity 
between  antecedent  and  consequent  as  a  condition 
of  measuring  their  quantitative  identity  in  phenom- 
enal changes,  he  retained  consciousness  as  well  as 
motion  in  the  series  of  phenomena  with  which  he 
dealt.  Hence  as  long  as  he  assumed  qualitative 
identity  between  cause  and  effect,  and  apparently  he 
had  to  do  this  in  order  to  maintain  the  conservation 
of  energy,  he  could  not  sustain  the  transient  and 
phenomenal  nature  of  consciousness. 

The  philosophical  spiritualist,  however,  instead  of 
applying  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  conceived  as  implying  an  identity 
between  cause  and  effect,  as  an  ad  hominem  argument 
against  materialism,  resorted  to  a  denial  of  the  causal 
nexus  between  the  physical  and  mental.  He  virtually 
admitted  that,  if  the  causal  connection,  assumed  in 
at  least  one  interpretation  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  be  rightly  conceived,  the  materialistic  theory 
would  be  supported.  But  instead  of  showing  a  re^ 
duetto  ad  ahsurdum  of  the  materialist  at  this  point, 
that  is,  a  conclusion  the  opposite  of  what  the  mate- 
rialist intended,  the  philosophic  spiritualist  thought 


MIND    AND    BODY  313 

to  redeem  his  position  by  denying  that  conception 
of  their  causal  relation,  and  set  up  the  doctrine  of 
Parallelism,  which  means  that  physical  phenomena 
cannot  be  transformed  into  mental,  that  one  cannot 
produce  the  other  causally,  as  mechanical  causation 
is  conceived.  He  thought  by  this  device  to  save  the 
soul.  He  thought  that,  if  consciousness  were  not  con- 
ceived as  transformed  or  transmitted  motion,  it  must 
have  another  subject  or  basis  than  the  physical  or- 
ganism. But  I  must  contend  that  this  is  a  vain  hope. 
I  see  no  reason  to  assume  that  only  one  kind  of  func- 
tion can  characterize  a  subject.  I  do  not  see  why 
any  number  of  functions  not  convertible  into  each 
other  might  not  subsist  side  by  side  in  the  same  or- 
ganism and  perish  with  it.  Hence  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  resort  to  parallelism  only  lands  us  in  a  cul- 
de-sac,  a  blind  alley.  Like  all  philosophic  arguments, 
it  depends  on  assumptions  which  facts  have  not  yet 
been  proved. 

If  the  parallelist  expects  to  prove  the  existence  of 
a  soul  or  something  other  than  the  bodily  organism 
to  explain  consciousness  by  denying  the  application 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  to  the  relation  between 
physical  and  mental  phenomena,  he  does  so  on  the 
assumption  that  all  physical  phenomena  are  reduci- 
ble to  modes  of  motion  and  that  consciousness  is  not 
a  mode  of  motion.  But  this  position  will  not  help 
him  any  in  the  one  fundamental  question  of  evidence. 
For,  though  consciousness  may  not  be  a  mode  of 
motion,  the  fact  that  we  observe  constantly  in  our 
experience  that  attributes  and  functions,  not  con- 
vertible into  each  other,  inhere  in  the  same  subject, 


314    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

is  proof  that,  in  spite  of  their  inconvertibility,  they 
are  related  to  their  subject  in  the  same  way  and  have 
their  destiny  conditioned  by  this  fact.  Hence  the 
only  conclusive  proof  that  another  subject  for  con- 
sciousness than  the  organism  is  necessary  will  be 
the  actual  separation  of  the  soul  and  its  individual 
consciousness  from  the  body.  If  this  can  be  effected 
and  communication  with  it  established,  we  can  have 
reasons  to  believe  that  consciousness  is  not  a  function 
of  the  body,  but  a  function  of  some  other  subject 
or  reality,  whatever  we  may  choose  to  call  it.  It 
may  be  true  that  consciousness  and  motion,  or  mental 
and  physical  phenomena,  are  not  interconvertible. 
Whether  they  are  or  are  not  I  do  not  care,  as  I  think 
an  interpretation  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is 
possible,  which  will  make  it  either  irrelevant  to  the 
problem  or  perfectly  consistent  with  survival  after 
death.  The  doctrine  is  not  yet  so  clear  in  its  philo- 
sophic conceptions  as  is  necessary  to  make  it  perti- 
nent to  the  issue,  and  hence  certain  assumptions  about 
it  have  to  be  made  in  order  to  secure  even  the  ap- 
pearance of  relevancy.  The  main  assumption  made 
is  that  cause  and  effect  are  identical  in  kind,  which 
may  not  always  or  ever  be  the  fact  at  all.  The  truer 
conception  of  the  relation  between  them,  and  so  be- 
tween the  members  in  a  series  of  physical  phenomena, 
is  that  they  are  identical  in  quantity,  not  necessarily 
qwcbLitatively  identical.  That  is  all  that  physics  claims 
when  it  is  careful  of  its  statements,  though  one  would 
like  to  know  what  we  mean  by  quantitative  sameness 
without  some  qualitative  sameness.  How  can  we  meas- 


MIND    AND    BODY  315 

ure  quantity  without  some  qualitative  identity  for  the 
standard? 

I  shall  not  thresh  out  this  question,  as  it  is  not 
necessary:  for  I  think  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
illusion  about  the  conservation  of  energy.  In  the 
one  sense  in  which  it  defines  the  facts  of  physical 
science  and  mechanics  it  is  wholly  irrelevant  to  the 
problem  before  us,  as  the  problems  of  science  and 
philosophy  are  not  all  of  them  reducible  to  the  idea 
of  equivalents  mechanical  or  otherwise.  The  con- 
fusion is  caused  by  the  equivocal  import  of  the  con- 
ception that  cause  and  effect  are  equal.  Equality 
implies  some  sort  of  identity  in  kind,  though  it  may 
not  be  essential,  as  in  mathematical  concepts.  For 
instance,  I  can  measure  a  certain  equivalence  between 
potatoes  and  books,  say  in  pounds  or  in  money  value. 
But  I  cannot  do  this  in  terms  of  inches.  It  is  the 
same  in  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect.  They 
are  not  always  or  in  all  characteristics  identical  in 
kind.  Hence  the  conservation  of  energy  is  irrelevant 
to  the  issue  affecting  the  existence  of  a  subject  other 
than  the  brain  to  account  for  consciousness,  and  it  is 
only  the  illusion  created  by  the  manner  of  expressing 
its  character  that  produces  the  appearance  of  a  rela- 
tion to  the  problem. 

The  whole  confusion  is  due  to  three  totally  differ- 
ent uses  of  the  term  cause.  (1)  It  is  used  to  denote 
the  action  of  one  thing  on  another  without  regard 
to  the  question  whether  there  is  transmission  of  mo- 
tion or  energy  in  the  act.  (2)  It  is  used  to  explain 
the  identity  of  the  quantity  of  energy  transmitted  in 
mechanical  operations,  where  the  effect  concerned  is 


316    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

some  mode  of  motion.  (3)  It  is  used  to  denote  the 
acts  of  a  subject  exercising  its  own  functions  or  ac- 
tivities. In  this  last  conception  there  is  no  implica- 
tion of  conservation  whatever,  and  yet  it  is  one  of 
the  most  widely  applied  ideas  of  causality.  The 
conservation  of  energy  can  be  applied  only  in  the 
second  conception  of  the  term,  and  it  can  be  applied 
there  only  under  limitations  which  do  not  exclude 
the  operation  of  other  uses  of  it  to  the  associated 
phenomena  in  the  same  connection. 

We  should  also  note  another  fact  of  interest.  No 
one  cares  a  penny  for  the  proved  inconvertibility  of 
physical  and  mental  phenomena,  unless  the  fact 
should  justify  the  belief  that  consciousness  survived 
the  body.  We  do  not  care  the  least  whether  there 
be  a  soul  or  not,  unless  this  consequence  is  guaranteed 
by  it.  It  would  completely  satisfy  our  scientific  and 
philosophic  curiosity  if  we  should  prove  that  the 
brain  was  the  subject  or  cause  of  consciousness;  and 
if  we  should  prove  that  there  was  a  soul  inhabiting 
the  organism  we  should  not  care  particularly  for  this 
fact  unless  it  implied  its  survival  after  death.  The 
whole  point  of  the  controversy  through  the  ages  has 
been  this  one  interest.  It  may  be  a  wrong  interest. 
With  that  I  am  not  concerned  at  present.  All  that 
I  wish  to  enforce  is  that  this  is  the  issue  and  that 
it  is  not  to  be  evaded,  whether  we  regard  it  as  a 
legitimate  issue  or  not.  We  should  say  either  that 
we  do  not  care  anything  about  survival  and  that  this 
is  not  involved  in  the  problem,  or  that  we  intend  to 
face  this  issue  and  solve  it  affirmatively  or  negatively, 
if  the  facts  enable  us  to  do  so.     In  all  history  that 


MIND   AND   BODY  317 

has  been  the  issue,  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  pre- 
tence of  another  subject  than  the  brain  to  explain 
consciousness,  unless  we  mean  to  attempt  the  solution 
of  that  question  by  our  method. 

But  when  it  comes  to  this  issue,  rightly  conceived 
it  can  be  determined  only  by  science  and  the  investi- 
gation of  those  facts  which  purport  to  represent  the 
isolation  of  the  soul  from  the  bodily  organism.  Dis- 
cussions about  the  conservation  of  energy  and  paral- 
lelism will  never  decide  it,  because  they  do  not  involve 
the  facts  which  are  necessary  for  proof  of  an  assured 
kind.  They  may  be  very  good  dialectics  and  useful 
for  clearing  up  our  ideas  on  various  matters,  but  they 
are  not  at  all  crucial  in  the  settlement  of  fundamental 
issues.  The  materialistic  position  is  invulnerable  as 
long  as  we  ignore  the  facts  which  purport  to  isolate 
the  individual  soul  and  consciousness  and  rely  for 
investigation  upon  those  phenomena  which  involve 
the  coincidence  between  consciousness  and  a  living 
organism.  The  latter  facts  are  wholly  in  favor  of 
the  association  of  mind  and  body,  and  no  facts  can 
disturb  that  conviction  except  they  prove  the  possi- 
ble isolation  of  personality.  The  whole  interest  of 
the  question  regarding  the  relation  between  mind 
and  body,  in  philosophy  and  religion,  of  course,  is 
whether  the  soul  is  anything  but  a  function  of  the 
body,  and  if  it  is  not  this,  its  survival  falls  under  the 
law  of  substance.  But  the  proof  of  this  must  be 
those  facts  which  prove  its  continuity,  and  no  others 
will  do  this  but  such  as  are  conceived  to  represent 
it  in  psychic  research.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  take 
up  the  consideration  of  the  issue  on  its  merits.     I  am 


318   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

concerned  in  this  statement  only  with  the  method 
for  its  solution,  not  the  application  of  it.  All  that 
I  am  here  indicating  is  the  nature  of  the  problem 
and  the  way  it  has  to  be  solved,  as  well  as  the  futility 
of  some  arguments  claiming  to  deal  with  it  effectively. 
In  parallelism  and  discussions  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  we  conceal  the  issue  by  supposing  that  the 
historical  problem  was  the  relation  between  physical 
and  mental  phenomena  within  the  organism,  namely, 
whether  they  were  convertible  or  not.  But  the  fact 
is  that  the  whole  question  of  the  causal  relation 
between  the  physical  and  mental  originated  in  the 
conception  that  is  represented  in  the  third  meaning 
of  causality  above  indicated,  and  was  whether  the 
organism  was  the  sole  basis  for  consciousness.  It  was 
only  a  shifting  and  evasion  of  the  issue  to  raise  the 
question  whether  the  physical  and  mental  series  in 
the  organism  were  interpretable  in  terms  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy.  That  might  or  might  not  be 
true  without  affecting  the  issue  with  which  philosophy 
and  religion  had  all  along  been  concerned. 

We  come  next  to  the  practical  problem  suggested 
by  the  phrase  "  Mind  and  Body."  This,  too,  con- 
cerns the  causal  relation  between  mental  and  physical 
phenomena,  but  not  with  reference  to  the  solution  of 
philosophical  and  religious  issues.  It  concerns  the 
question  whether  the  mind  can  influence  physical  con- 
ditions to  the  extent  of  healing  disease  and  regulat- 
ing the  nature  and  habits  of  organic  actions  within 
the  organism. 

In  the  great  philosophic  controversy  the  question 
of  their  causal  relation  was  construed  so  as  to  con- 


MIND   AND    BODY  319 

sider  but  one  side  of  it,  namely,  that  of  the  depend- 
ence of  mental  phenomena  upon  the  action  of  the 
body,  making  the  body  the  prior  or  first  condition 
of  the  existence  of  mental  phenomena.  The  material- 
istic theory  started  with  the  view  that  matter  is  the 
first  fact  in  existence,  even  an  eternal  fact,  and  so 
it  conceived  consciousness  as  secondary,  and  in  the 
experience  of  human  life  the  body  seemed  to  so  con- 
dition the  occurrence  of  consciousness  that  no  other 
subject  of  it  appeared  necessary.  The  settlement 
of  this  problem  did  not  require  either  party  to  dis- 
cuss the  question  whether  consciousness  was  the  first 
fact  in  the  world  and  matter  afterward.  That  was 
the  problem  of  theism,  and  even  when  this  was  proved 
there  still  remained  the  question  whether  human  con- 
sciousness was  prior  to  the  human  organism,  and  if 
it  were  not,  nothing  but  faith  in  the  character  of 
divine  intelligence  and  justice  would  guarantee  a 
belief  in  survival.  And  even  in  the  theistic  position 
the  dependence  of  consciousness  upon  the  body  was 
so  apparent,  at  least  in  respect  of  its  manifestations, 
that  no  determination  of  the  problem  of  a  future  life 
would  rest  on  assuming  a  causal  influence  of  the 
mind  on  the  body.  Hence  the  philosophic  discussion 
turned  about  the  relation  only  in  one  direction.  The 
practical  problem  assumes  the  issue  to  be  regarding 
the  causal  agency  of  the  mind  on  the  body  rather 
than  the  causal  agency  of  the  body  on  the  mind,  this 
latter  being  admitted. 

In  taking  up  the  practical  question  whether  the 
mind  can  affect  the  body  and  its  functions  I  do  not 
assume   any   conception   of   causality   but   the   most 


320   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

general  one.  This  is  the  simple  broad  conception 
of  one  thing  or  event  determining  the  action  of  an- 
other object  or  the  occurrence  of  another  event.  It 
does  not  matter  whether  one  event  or  phenomenon  is 
transformed  into  another.  The  point  in  this  general 
conception  is  only  whether  one  object  or  event  can 
in  any  way  affect  another  and  determine  its  behavior. 
This  we  take  for  granted  in  physical  phenomena,  and 
now  the  question  is  whether  the  mind  can  influence 
bodily  action  in  any  such  way  as  one  physical  fact 
influences  another,  and  if  so,  what  the  limits  of  such 
action  are. 

Neither  the  aflirmation  nor  the  denial  of  such  a 
causal  nexus  afl^ects  the  materialistic  theory.  The 
simple  reason  for  this  exclusion  of  metaphysical 
problems  from  the  issue  is  the  fact  that  in  physical 
science  the  series  of  phenomena,  all  physical,  is  com- 
posed of  phenomena  that  are  alternately  cause  and 
effect,  according  to  the  relation  in  which  they  are 
seen.  Thus  if  I  strike  a  billiard-ball,  I  impart  a 
certain  amount  of  motion  to  it.  The  cause  in  this 
case  may  be  the  instrument  with  which  I  strike  it. 
This  imparted  motion  is  again  transmitted  to  the 
next  ball  struck  by  the  first  one,  and  so  on  through 
any  number  in  the  series.  The  motion  of  the  first 
ball  is  the  effect  of  the  impact  with  the  cue  and  the 
cause  of  the  motion  in  the  second  ball,  and  so  on 
with  succeeding  balls.  In  general,  what  is  an  effect 
in  the  first  ball  becomes  a  cause  in  relation  to  the 
second,  and  what  is  an  effect  in  the  second  becomes 
a  cause  in  relation  to  the  third.     Cause  and  effect, 


MIND    AND    BODY  321 

therefore,  are  relative  terms  in  dealing  with  a  series 
of  connected  phenomena. 

If  then  we  assume  that  bodily  action  can  give  rise 
to  consciousness  and  consciousness  is  followed  by 
certain  physical  phenomena,  it  will  only  be  a  ques- 
tion of  evidence  and  of  uniformity  to  prove  to  us 
that  consciousness  can  be  a  cause  as  well  as  an  effect. 
The  materialist  may,  therefore,  admit  that  conscious- 
ness may  act  as  a  cause  without  supposing  that  it  is 
the  first  cause  in  the  occurrence  of  bodily  phenomena. 
We  find  thus  that  no  metaphysical  issue  is  involved 
in  this  form  of  conceiving  the  problem.  It  is  merely 
whether  consciousness  can  be  treated  as  a  cause.  The 
doctrine  of  parallelism  denies  that  it  can.  But  then 
this  doctrine  is  concerned  with  the  theory  of  "  me- 
chanical "  causation,  which  treats  it  from  the  point 
of  view  of  convertibility  of  cause  and  effect,  or  the 
transmission  of  energy  from  subject  to  subject.  But 
we  are  not  here  dealing  with  that  conception  of 
causality.  If  we  may  indulge  the  use  of  a  technical 
term,  it  is  efficient  causality  that  we  are  here  con- 
ceiving, and  this  means  merely  the  power  to  induce 
the  occurrence  of  a  fact  other  in  kind  than  the  ante- 
cedent one  with  which  we  start.  So  we  might  affirm 
the  existence  of  an  efficient  causal  nexus  between 
mind  and  body  without  admitting  transmissive  causes. 
Hence  the  parallelistic  position  is  irrelevant  to  the 
matter  here  considered.  Consequently  the  present 
problem  is  not  whether  consciousness  can  be  converted 
into  physical  phenomena,  but  whether  it  can  in  any 
way  affect  their  course  and  modify  the  "  natural " 
movement  of  physical  agencies. 


S22    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

With  this  view  of  causal  relation  I  think  the  ques- 
tion is  capable  of  very  easy  solution.  The  evidence 
that  mind  can  affect  body,  that  consciousness  can 
produce  physical  effects  in  or  out  of  the  body,  is  so 
clear  that  the  denial  of  it  in  this  broad  sense  is  equiv- 
alent to  ignorance.  The  first  determinative  evidence 
of  such  an  influence  is  the  act  of  will  or  volition.  We 
can  deliberately  move  our  limbs  in  any  way  we  please. 
It  matters  not  if  consciousness  was  first  the  result  of 
cerebral  and  therefore  of  physical  action.  You  may 
take  any  view  of  that  which  you  please.  The  point 
here  is  that  this  state  of  mind,  involving  the  idea  of 
an  end  and  an  emotional  impulse  to  attain  it,  in  its 
order  produces  certain  physical  phenomena,  and  these 
of  a  vast  variety,  though  they  may  all  be  of  one 
type.  Indirectly  it  may  give  rise  to  external  physi- 
cal events  which  would  not  have  occurred  but  for 
the  interposition  of  the  will  in  the  series  of  events. 

Again,  a  sensation  or  a  pain  in  any  part  of  the 
organism  is  known  to  produce  an  effect  on  the  arteries 
and  the  circulation  of  the  blood  to  that  particular 
region.  The  arteries  will  enlarge  and  admit  a  more 
copious  flow  of  blood  to  the  specific  locality  affected. 
We  know  what  effect  fright  may  have  on  the  action 
of  the  heart,  or  often  upon  the  muscles,  causing 
trembling  or  rigidity  as  the  case  may  be.  Sometimes 
fright  may  cause  a  very  large  suspense  of  the  normal 
physiological  conditions  and  induce  catalepsy  or 
other  physical  disturbances.  Strong  emotions  may 
affect  the  digestion,  the  action  of  the  liver,  or  the 
kidneys,  and  other  functional  organs.  Excitement 
may  increase  the  flow  of  blood  to  the  brain.     In  a 


MIND    AND    BODY 

thousand  ways  consciousness  influences  bodily  condi- 
tions, and  the  only  question  is  what  its  limits  are. 

I  may  refer  to  the  work  of  Dr.  Hack  Tuke  on  this 
specific  subject,  a  work  whose  importance  will  not  be 
questioned  by  any  in  the  medical  profession.  It  is 
composed  of  instances  and  reflections  on  the  influence 
of  the  mind  on  the  body,  and  was  written  and  pub- 
lished in  1872.  It  is  far  enough  away  from  the  in- 
terests and  prejudices  of  this  age  on  similar  phenom- 
ena to  be  free  from  suspicion  of  personal  passion, 
and  is  a  good  inductive  collection  of  facts  bearing 
upon  the  matter  under  consideration.  Some  of  the 
incidents  probably  needed  more  careful  investigation 
as  to  their  nature  or  credibility,  but  most  of  them 
have  such  authorities  in  their  support  as  to  make 
the  fact  of  mental  influence  on  the  bodily  organism 
certain,  while  less  accredited  facts  will  appear  as 
possible  whether  proved  or  not.  Many  of  Dr.  Tuke's 
instances  represent  morbid  conditions,  but  this  will 
not  make  any  diff^erence  to  the  general  fact  of  mental 
influence  on  the  body,  though  for  certain  purposes 
we  have  to  keep  the  two  types  of  influence  distinct 
from  each  other.  I  have  referred  above  to  what  must 
be  universally  recognized  as  representing  the  claim 
of  causal  action  of  mind  on  the  body,  as  a  fact  which 
has  to  be  admitted  on  any  theory  of  the  relation 
between  the  two. 

The  following  incident  is  taken  from  Tuke's  col- 
lection. "  Dr.  Kellog  records,  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Insanity,  the  case  of  a  friend  of  his  who 
informed  him  that  he  had  frequently  sailed  when 
young  in  a  steamboat  across  an  arm  of  the  sea  which 


324    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

was  rough,  and  in  consequence  often  suffered  from 
seasickness.  Upon  this  boat  was  an  old  blind  fiddler, 
who  did  his  best  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the  pas- 
sengers with  his  violin.  The  result  was  that  this 
instrument  became  associated  in  his  mind  with  sea- 
sickness, and  for  years  he  could  never  hear  it  without 
experiencing  sensations  of  nausea  or  a  sort  of  mal 
de  mer" 

I  might  interrupt  instances  from  Dr.  Tuke  by  an 
experience  of  my  own  when  a  child.  Some  occasion 
arose  when  it  was  necessary  to  give  me  an  emetic, 
and  I  was  told  that  I  must  take  it.  I  showed  the 
natural  resistance  of  a  child  against  taking  medi- 
cine, and  feared  that  it  would  be  very  nasty  and 
disagreeable.  I  took  it,  however,  and  was  surprised 
to  find  it  sweet  and  agreeable.  I  remarked  that  I 
could  drink  that  kind  of  medicine.  But  after  its 
effect  had  been  once  produced,  for  years  I  could  not 
think  of  it  even  without  intense  nausea.  It  is  a 
common  experience  to  feel  repugnance  to  some  food 
or  other  objects  to  be  taken  into  the  system  and  to 
be  affected  by  the  thought  of  them  when  we  think 
of  them,  but  not  to  feel  any  effects  when  they  are 
taken  without  knowledge. 

"  Gratiolet  relates  of  himself  that  when  a  child  his 
sight  became  affected,  and  he  was  obliged  to  wear 
spectacles.  The  pressure  which  their  weight  exerted 
upon  the  nose  was  so  insupportable  that  he  was 
obliged  to  discontinue  their  use.  Writing  twenty 
years  after,  he  says  that  he  never  sees  any  one  wear- 
ing spectacles,  without  instantly   experiencing  very 


MIND    AND    BODY  S25 

disagreeably  the  sensation  which  had  so  much  dis- 
turbed him  as  a  boy." 

The  famous  story  of  the  incident  in  ParHament 
during  the  reign  of  Charles  I  is  worth  retelling.  A 
report  was  made  to  the  House  of  Commons  of  a  plot 
to  blow  up  the  members.  "  During  its  reading,  some 
stood  up  alarmed,  including  '  two  very  corpulent 
members,'  whose  weight  broke  a  board  in  the  gallery, 
which  gave  so  great  a  crack,  that  some  thought 
there  was  a  plot  indeed,  and  Sir  John  Ray  cried  out 
that  he  smelt  gunpowder.  The  result  was  a  panic 
in  the  House  and  throughout  London,  followed  by 
an  armed  band  marching  to  Westminster  to  defend 
the  House  from  this  imaginary  gunpowder  plot." 

Dr.  Tuke  narrates  an  incident  of  the  war  between 
France  and  Prussia  in  1870.  "  A  lady  informs  me," 
he  says,  "  that  at  Tours  many  lost  their  health,  and 
some  died  from  fright.  A  young  lady  was  standing 
with  her  father  at  the  window  when  the  Prussian 
soldiers  came  down  the  tranchee,  and  was  seized  with 
shivering;  her  father,  who  could  feel  her  trembling, 
said  — '  You  need  not  be  frightened,  they  will  not 
hurt  you ; '  but  she  received  a  shock  from  which  she 
became  quite  blanched,  and  lost  her  sleep  and  flesh. 
She  has  not  yet  fully  recovered  her  strength,  and 
remarks  that  she  has  never  been  able  to  keep  her  feet 
warm  since  that  day." 

Quoting  another  physician  the  same  author  adds: 
"  A  captain  of  a  British  ship  of  war,  says  Dr.  Rush, 
who  had  been  confined  for  several  weeks  to  his  cabin 
by  a  severe  fit  of  gout  in  his  feet,  was  suddenly 
cured  by  hearing  the  cry  of  '  Fire ! '    on  board  his 


326    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ship.      This    fact    was    communicated    to    me    (Dr. 
Rush)  by  the  gentleman  who  was  witness  of  it." 

Braid  reports  an  interesting  case  which  has  its 
humorous  features  as  well  as  its  scientific.  "  Two 
captains  of  merchant  vessels  arrived  in  port  at  the 
same  time,  and  both  went  to  take  up  their  quarters 
in  their  usual  lodgings.  They  were  informed  by  the 
landlady  of  the  house,  however,  that  she  was  very 
sorry  that  she  could  not  accommodate  them  on  that 
occasion,  as  the  only  bedroom  which  she  could  have 
appropriated  for  their  use  was  occupied  by  the 
corpse  of  a  gentleman  just  deceased.  Being  most 
anxious  to  remain  in  their  accustomed  lodgings, 
almost  on  any  terms,  rather  than  go  elsewhere,  they 
offered  to  sleep  in  the  room  wherein  the  dead  body 
was  laid  out.  To  his  the  landlady  readily  gave  her 
assent,  considering  it  better,  so  far  as  she  was  con- 
cerned, to  have  three  such  customers  in  her  room 
than  only  one,  and  he  a  dead  one.  Having  repaired 
to  bed,  one  of  the  gentlemen,  who  was  a  very  great 
wag,  began  a  conversation  with  the  other  by  asking 
him  whether  he  had  ever  before  slept  in  a  room  with 
a  corpse  in  it,  to  which  he  replied,  '  No.'  '  Then,' 
said  the  other,  '  are  you  aware  of  the  remarkable 
circumstance  that  always,  in  such  cases,  after  mid- 
night, the  room  gets  filled  with  canaries  which  fly 
about  and  sing  in  the  most  beautiful  manner?  '  His 
companion  expressed  his  surprise  at  this.  But  no 
sooner  said  than  realized;  for,  the  candle  having 
been  put  out,  presently  there  was  a  burst  of  music, 
as  if  the  room  really  was  full  of  canaries,  which  were 
not  only  heard,  but  ^\>  length  the  horrified  novice 


MIND    AND    BODY  327 

in  the  chamber  of  death  avowed  that  he  both  saw  and 
felt  the  birds  flying  in  all  directions  and  plunging 
against  him.  In  a  short  time  he  became  so  excited, 
that,  without  taking  time  to  do  his  toilet,  he  rushed 
down-stairs  in  his  night-dress,  assuring  the  aston- 
ished household  of  the  fact  and  insisting  that  the  room 
really  was  quite  full  of  birds,  as  he  could  testify  from 
the  evidence  of  his  senses,  for  he  had  not  only  heard 
them,  but  also  seen  and  felt  them  flappvng  their 
wmgs  agamst  hkn.  The  captain  had  some  excuse 
for  saying  he  heard  them,  although  not  for  seeing 
or  feeling  them,  for  his  companion  had  really  imi- 
tated the  note  of  the  canary  by  blowing  through  a 
reed  dipped  in  water." 

A  practical  joke  was  here  the  initial  suggestion, 
and  it  distributed  its  influence  to  other,  the  tactual 
and  visual  brain-centres,  and  emerged  as  actual  sen- 
sations. "  When  potassium  was  discovered  by  Davy, 
Dr.  Pearson,  taking  up  a  globule,  estimated  its 
weight  on  his  finger,  and  exclaimed,  '  Bless  me,  how 
heavy  it  is ! '  simply  from  expecting  a  metal  to  be 
so,  whereas  the  reverse  was  the  real  truth,"  potassium 
having  a  specific  gravity  less  than  water,  and  there- 
fore capable  of  floating  in  it. 

These  few  illustrations  suffice  to  indicate  a  causal 
influence  of  mental  upon  bodily  states,  and  if  any 
issue  against  materialism  were  involved  they  would 
be  sufficient,  with  such  frequent  instances  as  psy- 
chiatry has  recorded,  to  disprove  that  theory.  But, 
as  I  have  already  remarked,  materialistic  theories 
need  not  deny  the  causal  nexus  between  mental  and 
physical  phenomena.     What  the  primary  cause  of 


328    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

mental  states  is  may  be  one  question,  but  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  mental,  once  existent  as  effects,  may 
not  in  turn  act  as  causes  is  another  question.  Hence 
no  metaphysical  issues  are  involved  in  the  matter. 
But  the  practical  question  is  involved.  If  the  mind 
can  influence  the  body  we  may  suspect  that  the  possi- 
bility might  be  utilized  to  effect  certain  desirable 
results,  and  whether  these  could  be  effected  or  not 
will  be  purely  a  matter  of  observation  and  experi- 
ment. But  any  claim  that  such  practical  results  are 
possible  will  depend  for  its  acceptance  upon  the  as- 
sumed or  established  fact  that  there  is  a  causal  nexus 
of  the  kind  under  consideration. 

The  materialistic  theory,  although  it  was  consist- 
ent with  the  admission  of  this  causal  nexus,  so  em- 
phasized the  dependence  of  consciousness  upon  phys- 
ical conditions  and  causes  that  it  tended  to  lose  sight 
of  the  obverse  causal  fact,  and  the  assertion  of  the 
influence  of  mind  on  body  was  skeptically  received  at 
first.  But  this  was  probably  because  of  the  ex- 
tensive character  claimed  for  that  influence  rather 
than  the  fact  of  it.  No  doubt  the  proof  of  it  would 
consist  in  certain  striking  facts,  and  these  would  be 
subject  to  skeptical  scrutiny  in  proportion  to  the 
extent  of  the  claims  asserted  for  the  influence  of  the 
mind.  Hence  in  here  asserting  that  the  influence 
exists  as  a  fact  I  have  appealed  first  to  the  most 
general  normal  facts  and  chosen  some  more  or  less 
crucial  instances  in  the  abnormal.  They  establish 
the  general  fact  of  causal  agency  in  consciousness  or 
subconscious  states  upon  the  organism,  and  it  re- 


MIND    AND    BODY  329 

mains  to  determine  how  much  this  causal  agency  can 
do  and  what  it  cannot  do. 

I  shall  not  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  limita- 
tions of  this  causal  influence,  as  it  would  require  a 
volume  to  do  this  apart  from  mere  assertion.  My 
chief  object  here  has  been  to  show  that  the  influence 
has  to  be  admitted  as  a  fact  in  order  that  we  may 
be  just  to  the  many  claims  made  for  its  presence  in 
certain  more  remarkable  instances.  Suggestive  thera- 
peutics and  "  Christian  Science,"  as  well  as  "  meta- 
physical healing  "  and  "  faith  cures,"  all  rely  upon 
the  assumption  of  such  an  agency,  and  the  easiest 
way  to  refute  their  claims  would  be  to  wholly  deny 
the  causal  action  of  the  mind  on  the  body.  But  this 
cannot  be  done  in  any  absolute  manner.  It  only  in- 
jures one's  power  to  limit  the  claims  of  these  more 
striking  phenomena  to  take  the  radically  opposite 
position.  We  shall  have  to  learn  to  determine  the 
limitations  of  mental  action  on  the  body  rather  than 
to  deny  it,  and  it  is  well  to  come  to  the  study  of  the 
facts  with  some  conception  of  the  concealed  truth 
lying  at  the  basis  of  the  apparently  more  miraculous 
phenomena. 

The  whole  subject  needs  to  be  put  under  thorough 
scientific  investigation.  Dr.  Tuke's  work  was  pioneer, 
and,  as  I  have  hinted  already,  many  of  the  incidents 
upon  which  he  relies  to  illustrate  or  prove  the  influ- 
ence of  mind  on  body  needed  more  careful  exami- 
nation for  determining  exactly  what  the  facts  were. 
The  evidential  aspect  of  the  phenomena  seems  not 
to  have  been  as  carefully  examined  as  we  might  in- 
sist upon  to-day.    Hence  in  his  work  we  have  to  dis- 


330    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLANI) 

criminate  instances  whose  value  comes  from  the  au- 
thorities capable  of  reporting  them  justly  and 
instances  which  belong  to  ages  and  people  whose 
judgment  regarding  the  facts  may  not  be  so  good 
as  is  desirable.  To  ascertain  exactly  the  limits  of 
this  influence  will  require  a  most  patient  and  exact- 
ing investigation.  That  it  exists  may  easily  be  de- 
termined, but  its  nature  and  extent  are  another 
matter.  The  use  to  which  it  can  be  put  when  deter- 
mined scientifically  may  be  important,  but  cannot  be 
known  rightly  until  its  limitations  are  known. 

In  physiology  a  long  history  of  experiment  and 
observation  has  shown  us  certain  very  definite  rela- 
tions between  physical  and  mental  conditions.  For 
instance,  in  the  most  general  fact  of  experience,  take 
sensation.  Here  the  sensation  is  the  uniform  effect 
of  a  stimulus  of  a  determinate  character,  light  pro- 
ducing color,  vibrations  of  a  certain  type  producing 
sound,  etc.  In  the  abnormal,  the  presence  of  certain 
bacteria  produce  typhoid  fever,  of  certain  other 
bacteria  scarlet  fever,  of  still  others  tuberculosis. 
The  presence  of  congestion  in  the  brain  produces 
certain  mental  aberrations,  a  lesion  at  some  point 
brings  about  aphasia,  another  type  of  lesion  produces 
epilepsy,  etc.  We  have  learned  in  these  and  in  all 
diseases  to  determine  their  presence  by  the  presence 
of  certain  uniform  physical  symptoms,  and  when  they 
are  found  the  diagnosis  is  tolerably  certain.  The 
criteria  of  disease  have  thus  become  quite  definite 
and  clearly  known.  But  the  causal  influence  of  the 
mental  on  the  physical  has  not  been  so  clearly  and 
definitely  formulated  into  laws.     The  whole  subject 


MIND    AND    BODY  331 

is  in  its  infancy.  It  may  be  that  we  can  never  so 
definitely  determine  what  specific  physical  effect  may 
accompany  a  given  antecedent  mental  fact.  But  if 
it  is  determinable  at  all,  it  can  be  so  only  after  the 
most  painstaking  and  prolonged  investigation  that 
we  can  imagine.  Physiology  has  been  long  in  com- 
ing to  its  present  definite  knowledge,  and  it  may 
take  psychological  investigation  much  longer  to  ob- 
tain half  the  definiteness  of  the  knowledge  regarding 
the  physical  agencies  acting  on  the  mind.  But  the 
fact  that  mental  states  do  actually  affect  the  body, 
and  the  fact  that  certain  of  them  affect  it  in  a  cer- 
tain way  or  certain  parts  of  the  organism,  suggest 
that  time  may  enable  us  to  organize  our  knowledge 
of  the  phenomena  in  a  way  to  use  the  results  for 
diagnosis  quite  as  effectively,  though  not  any  more 
infallibly,  than  we  can  now  use  physiological  knowl- 
edge. The  practical  field  in  which  such  knowledge 
could  be  applied  would  be  suggestive  therapeutics. 
This  comes  up  for  consideration  in  the  next  chapter, 
and  is  mentioned  here  only  to  indicate  the  relation 
of  general  principles  herein  involved  to  hypnotic  and 
normal  suggestion.  But  the  efficiency  of  our  knowl- 
edge will  depend  upon  the  extent  of  it  in  regard  to 
the  causal  influence  of  mental  on  bodily  states. 

There  is  one  other  field  of  interest  closely  allied 
to  the  one  just  discussed.  It  is  the  causal  action 
of  one  mental  state  on  another.  Whether  this  is  a 
fact  remains  to  be  determined.  There  are  some  indi- 
cations of  its  existence,  but  I  shall  not  assert  it  as 
unequivocally  true.  If  it  be  true,  it  is  a  most  im- 
portant fact.     We  have  the  admitted  truth  of  the 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

influence  of  the  physical  on  the  mental,  of  the  phys- 
ical on  the  physical,  and  of  the  mental  on  the  phys- 
ical in  our  nature.  It  remains  to  complete  this 
knowledge  by  that  of  the  mental  on  the  mental,  if 
it  be  a  fact.  The  problem  is  not  the  subject  of  this 
chapter,  but  it  is  associated  with  the  issues  we  have 
been  discussing  and  will  appear  more  prominently 
in  the  discussion  of  suggestive  therapeutics. 


CHAPTER   XI 

HYPNOTISM    AND    THEEAPEUTICS 

The  previous  chapter  illustrated  the  influence  of 
normal  mental  actions  on  the  body  in  general  and 
without  going  into  specific  cases  where  it  was  strik- 
ing or  remarkable.  We  come  in  the  subject  of 
hypnotic  and  therapeutic  phenomena  to  the  facts  of 
unconscious  influence  of  mind  on  the  body.  The 
chapter  on  secondary  personality  established  the  fact 
of  unconscious  mental  action,  and  we  have  now  to 
examine  its  parallel  influence  upon  physical  condi- 
tions, showing  that  it  can  produce  such  eff^ects  as 
well  as  simulate  the  existence  of  independent  person- 
ality. It  should  be  remarked,  however,  that  the 
causal  action  of  consciousness  on  the  physical  or- 
ganism is  in  no  case  voluntary  and  intentional,  ex- 
cept in  the  phenomena  of  purposive  volition,  and  this 
action  limits  its  influence  to  muscular  or  motor  phe^ 
nomena.  Even  this  involves  processes  of  which  we 
know  nothing  directly,  and  the  only  thing  that  we 
do  know  is  the  fact  that  the  mind's  fiat  is  so  directly 
obeyed  that  we  at  least  appear  to  be  consciously  and 
directly  effective  in  action  on  the  body.  But  in  the 
other  instances  of  causal  influence  the  mind  does  not 
consciously    and  purposely   produce   the   effect    ob- 

333 


334    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

served.  It  is  the  result  of  reflex  functions.  It  is 
thus  in  a  measure  unconscious,  though  the  effect  is 
the  consequence  of  a  state  of  normal  consciousness. 
This  fact  exhibits  the  bridge  between  the  action  of 
primary  and  of  secondary  mental  phenomena  upon 
the  body.  It  illustrates  also  the  facts  which  suggest 
the  limitations   of  such  influence. 

I  shall  not  go  into  the  history  of  hypnotism,  as 
that  is  an  old  subject  and  not  of  importance  at  pres- 
ent. I  have  time  only  for  considerations  of  practical 
importance,  and  the  most  urgent  one  of  these  is  the 
total  misunderstanding  which  the  general  public  has 
about  the  nature  of  hypnotism  and  its  influence.  It 
cherishes  a  perfectly  inexcusable  illusion  regarding 
that  influence.  This  is  because  the  scientific  man  did 
not  at  once  investigate  the  phenomena  and  control 
the  public  judgment  about  it  as  science  has  done  in 
physical  phenomena,  such  as  electricity,  magnetism, 
meteors,  and  similar  facts.  The  conception  of  the 
public  has  not  gotten  beyond  the  ideas  of  Mesmer 
and  unscientific  men  of  that  time.  Mesmer  was 
wholly  unscientific,  and  did  not  investigate  his  phe- 
nomena with  the  view  of  understanding  them  ration- 
ally. He  no  doubt  did  some  effective  practical  work 
with  hypnotism,  but  he  undertook  to  explain  his  facts 
by  magical  and  miraculous  agencies.  The  assump- 
tion of  a  fluid  passing  from  the  operator  to  the  sub- 
ject or  patient  was,  at  least  at  that  time,  nothing 
more  or  less  than  something  "  supernatural,"  though 
it  was  not  supposedly  personal  in  its  nature.  The 
theories  of  Odylic  force  originated  from  this  con- 
ception of  the  phenomena.      There  may   ultimately 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    335 

be  discovered  some  reason  to  suppose  that  fluidic 
agencies  are  associated  with  the  phenomena,  but  I 
see  no  reason  as  yet  to  beheve  it,  and  I  make  the  con- 
cession here  only  to  divest  myself  of  bigotry  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  facts,  as  we  know  so  little  about 
them.  Whether  a  fluidic  theory  of  interpreting  the 
facts  be  true  or  not,  the  use  made  of  it  in  the  early 
history  of  the  subject  was  such  as  to  alienate  scien- 
tific minds  and  to  create  the  conception  of  magic  in 
regard  to  its  phenomena,  and  that  conception  of  them 
has  not  been  sufficiently  eradicated  as  yet. 

It  was  the  influence  of  Braid,  of  Manchester,  which 
modified  the  views  of  scientific  men  regarding  hyp- 
notic phenomena.  After  the  French  Academy  of 
Science  had  repudiated  the  facts  and  refused  to  in- 
vestigate the  claims  of  the  mesmerists.  Braid  took 
them  up  and  showed  that  hypnosis  was  not  due  to 
any  necessary  transmission  of  force  or  fluid  from  the 
operator  to  the  subject,  but  to  "  suggestion,"  which 
has  come  to  be  the  descriptive  term  for  indicating  the 
source  of  the  phenomena.  It  removed  the  idea  that 
the  cause  was  external  to  the  patient,  and  placed  it 
in  the  patient's  own  mind.  Consequently,  owing  to 
analogies  of  the  phenomenon  with  sleep,  he  aban- 
doned the  term  Mesmerism,  which  was  saturated  with 
the  associations  of  fluidic  agencies  and  magical  in- 
fluences, and  adopted  the  term  hypnosis,  from  a 
Greek  word  meaning  sleep,  to  denominate  the  nature 
of  the  phenomenon.  Among  scientific  men  that  con- 
ception of  the  fact  has  prevailed  ever  since,  though 
it  has  not  wholly  explained  the  phenomena. 

The  popular  conception  of  the  phenomena  is  not 


336   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

hard  to  understand.  The  superficial  appearance  of 
them  is  certainly  disturbing  to  the  habits  and  con- 
ceptions of  normal  science,  especially  in  the  field  of 
therapeutics.  To  see  a  few  passes  made  over  a  man's 
face,  followed  by  an  apparently  passive  obedience 
to  every  hint  made  to  him,  is  not  what  we. observe 
in  the  normal  man.  With  the  normal  person  we  re- 
quire either  to  persuade  or  force  him  when  we  want 
him  to  act.  Persuasion  may  be  accompanied  by  a 
certain  amount  of  resistance,  as  force  implies  a  large 
amount  of  it.  The  rational  man  does  not  obey  sug- 
gestions passively.  He  reflects  on  them  and  decides 
for  himself  their  reasonableness,  and  obeys  or  resists 
according  to  his  judgment  of  their  rationality.  But 
the  hypnotic  subject  obeys  without  reflection  or  with- 
out thinking  of  the  rationality  of  the  suggestion, 
or  he  even  acts  against  it.  He  seems  to  be  as  clay 
in  the  hands  of  the  operator.  He  apparently  has 
no  mind  or  will  of  his  own,  but  acts  like  a  machine 
directed  by  a  mechanical  force.  The  impression, 
therefore,  is  natural  that  anything  whatever  can  be 
done  with  the  subject  by  the  operator,  and  if  the 
performances  of  public  hypnotists  be  taken  as  the 
standard,  this  view  would  be  apparently  correct.  The 
fact  is,  however,  that  public  exhibitions  are  too  often 
mere  pretences  and  frauds.  There  is  never  any  as- 
surance that  hypnotism  is  practised  by  such  people 
at  all.  They  have  trained  subjects  whom  they  often 
do  not  hypnotize  at  all,  and  no  conception  of  the  phe- 
nomena should  ever  be  formed  from  such  perform- 
ances. Yet  even  in  instances  where  the  phenomena 
are  genuine  they  are  as  much  or  more  striking  than 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    337 

public  illustrations  often  dare  be,  and  give  the  nat- 
ural impression  that  the  hypnotized  subject  is  under 
the  absolute  domination  of  the  operator.  The  absurd 
actions,  like  making  faces  at  a  person,  crawling  on 
the  floor,  fishing  in  an  empty  tub,  repeating  absurd 
phrases  to  a  door,  etc.,  are  apparent  indications  of 
passive  subjection  to  outside  influences. 

Still  more  puzzling  are  cures  of  various  maladies 
or  the  production  of  physiological  eff^ects  by  sugges- 
tion. The  cure  of  headaches,  of  pains,  the  produc- 
tion of  insensibility,  of  ecstatic  mental  states,  etc., 
look  so  much  like  magic  that  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  popular  imagination  regards  the  phenomena  as 
miraculous.  In  ordinary  medical  practice  the  rules 
aff^ecting  it  are  based  upon  a  long  observation  of 
coincidence  and  sequence  in  the  phenomena  of  thera- 
peutics. At  first  we  knew  no  more  about  the  causal 
influence  of  calomel,  of  quinine,  of  arsenic,  of  strych- 
nine, of  magnesia,  etc.,  than  we  know  of  suggestion. 
But  in  the  course  of  long  observation  we  have  come 
to  know  and  expect  certain  invariable  consequences 
following  on  their  use.  It  is  the  same  with  the  rela- 
tion between  all  other  elements  of  the  materia  medica 
or  pharmaceutic  products.  We  have  become  so 
familiar  with  their  causal  agency  that  we  do  not 
wonder  at  them,  though  we  may  have  done  so  at 
first,  and  besides  they  represent  the  influence  of  phys- 
ical causes,  with  which  we  are  more  familiar  than 
with  the  mental.  We  know  what  to  expect  of  them. 
But  hypnotic  suggestion  appears  to  us  in  our  ordi- 
nary experience  of  causal  agency  as  nothing  less  tHan 
thauraaturgic  or  magical.     No  wonder  it  was  and 


338    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

often  is  classified  with  the  "  black  art."  To  pass 
one's  hands  a  few  moments  over  a  man's  face,  and 
then  remove  a  severe  pain  or  cure  an  apparently 
dangerous  disease  by  simply  saying  to  him  that  he 
will  awaken  up  without  the  pain  or  will  recover  in 
a  few  days  from  his  illness  without  further  attention 
is  to  do  apparent  violence  to  every  familiar  principle 
of  causation.  We  are  not  accustomed  in  ordinary 
normal  life  to  have  such  marvellous  consequences  fol- 
low a  word.  We  have  to  resort  to  more  strenuous 
methods  to  accomplish  our  results.  Hence,  when 
we  can  remove  pains  and  cure  diseases,  or  make  a 
subject  perform  unusual  acts  by  a  mere  word  to  him, 
we  seem  to  be  reproducing  the  phenomena  which 
appeared  to  be  miraculous  in  the  earlier  history  of 
men.  There  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  such  agencies 
when  they  are  viewed  by  the  common  observer,  and 
hence  hypnotism  stands  for  something  apparently 
supernatural,  and,  measured  in  terms  of  the  ordinary 
conceptions  of  causal  relations,  this  judgment  has 
its  excusable  characteristics. 

But  in  spite  of  superficial  appearances  this  con- 
viction of  magical  powers  in  the  use  of  hypnosis  is 
an  illusion.  No  less  so  is  the  belief  that  the  agency 
is  wholly  from  without.  It  is  not  any  thaumaturgic 
and  miracle-working  genius  that  effects  the  result, 
but  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  the  action  of  the  subject's 
own  mind.  He  cannot  be  hypnotized  without  his 
own  consent.  After  long  practice  in  submission  to 
hypnosis  it  may  appear  that  the  subject's  consent 
is  not  necessary,  but  in  no  other  circumstances  does 
it  seem  possible.     All  the  cases  reported  of  involun- 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    339 

tary  hypnotizing  within  my  knowledge  are  explic- 
able by  silent  suggestion  in  which  a  look  indicates 
what  the  operator  has  in  mind  and  no  verbal  state- 
ment is  made  or  passes  introduced.  At  first  the  con- 
sent of  the  patient  has  to  be  obtained  to  effect  any 
result  whatever,  and  as  the  susceptibility  to  sugges- 
tion increases  it  may  be  easier  to  effect  hypnosis; 
many  instances  of  it  may  occur  in  which  the  super- 
ficial evidence  is  for  hypnosis  without  consent.  The 
consent,  however,  need  not  be  formal  and  voluntary. 
It  may  be  the  simple  result  of  the  consciousness  that 
the  operator  is  thinking  of  this  result.  Many  cases 
of  such  attempted  effects  show  effective  resistance 
to  the  "  influences,"  and,  taken  on  the  whole,  in  all 
but  the  alleged  telepathic  instances  of  producing 
hypnosis  —  and  these  are  very  rare  —  the  evidence 
is  slight  for  any  external  agency  whatever  for  the 
production  of  hypnosis,  at  least  of  a  magical  type. 
The  rather  crucial  experiment  of  Braid  in  this  mat- 
ter is  worth  quoting. 

A  hypnotizer  had  claimed  that  he  could  induce 
mesmeric  sleep  in  his  subject  without  her  knowledge 
or  consent.  Braid  doubted  it,  and  brought  the  man 
to  his  house  and  afterwards  brought  the  subject, 
who  he-d  no  knowledge  of  the  man's  presence.  She 
sat  within  a  few  feet  of  him  in  another  room,  the 
door  between  them  being  slightly  open.  The  mes- 
merist worked  for  some  three-quarters  of  an  hour  to 
induce  hypnosis,  but  he  failed.  As  soon  as  the  sub- 
ject learned  that  he  was  present  and  trying  to  hyp- 
notize her,  that  is,  as  soon  as  she  became  conscious 
of  the  man's  presence  and  efforts,  she  at  once  went 


340    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

into  the  mesmeric  sleep,  proving  that  her  own  mind 
was  the  chief  instrument  in  the  result.  The  well- 
reported  telepathic  instance  of  Pierre  Janet  seems 
to  be  an  exception  to  this  view,  and  I  shall  not  deny 
that  exceptions  may  exist.  I  am  not  concerned  for  the 
absolute  universality  of  the  inability  to  hypnotize 
without  consent,  but  with  the  rule  in  all  normal  cases. 
The  instances  that  seem  to  be  exceptions  are  so  only 
by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  the  stage  of  their  develop- 
ment, which  illustrates  this  effect  without  apparent 
consent,  follows  on  a  long  experience  with  sugges- 
tion attended  at  first  with  consent,  and  so  they  may 
be  brought  under  the  rule,  and  the  case  possibly  made 
universal. 

When  the  patient's  consent  is  so  necessary  to  the 
result  it  is  apparent  that  all  the  magic  supposable 
in  the  phenomena  is  in  the  subject  himself  and  not 
in  the  agent  or  operator.  This  latter  person  may  be 
an  important  factor  in  the  majority  of  cases,  but 
that  he  is  not  absolutely  necessary  is  sufficiently 
proved  by  the  simple  facts  of  somnambulism,  which 
is  one  form  of  hypnosis,  and  of  auto-hypnosis,  which 
is  perhaps  a  form  of  spontaneous  somnambulism, 
if  I  may  thus  interchange  terms,  though  less  frequent 
than  what  ordinarily  is  called  somnambulism.  These 
facts,  which  are  wholly  phenomena  of  the  subject 
without  external  influence  of  the  hypnotic  kind, 
evince  beyond  question  the  fact  that  the  hypnotic 
state  is  not  a  magical  effect  from  without,  no  matter 
how  important  the  intervention  of  an  operator  may 
be  for  multiplying  illustrations  of  it. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  fact  that  the  operator  does 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    341 

not  have  the  magical  power  popularly  ascribed  to 
him  that  I  may  remove  the  fear  of  hypnosis  as  a 
subject  of  investigation  and  therapeutic  agency. 
The  absurd  fear  of  it  is  due  to  this  false  assumption 
of  its  nature  and  of  the  power  of  the  person  who 
induces  it.  It  is  true  enough,  nevertheless,  that  it 
involves  influences  which  can  be  abused.  That  I  do 
not  question.  But  it  is  not  because  of  any  magic 
or  thaumaturgy  about  it.  This  may  be  a  reason  for 
refusing  consent  to  its  application  in  certain  cases, 
but  it  is  not  indicative  of  any  power  superior  to  the 
subject's  will  and  capable  of  subjecting  the  indi- 
vidual to  complete  dominion.  The  use  of  it  ought 
no  doubt  to  be  restricted  to  scientific  and  medical 
purposes,  but  this  liability  to  misuse  hypnosis  on 
the  part  of  some  who  practise  it  is  not  an  evidence 
of  dangerous  power,  but  only  of  one  which  should 
be  used  like  all  others  whose  misuse  is  subject  to 
danger.  Eradicate  the  idea  that  the  power  is  mag- 
ical and  there  will  arise  a  method  of  limiting  the 
abuses  to  which  the  practice  of  it  is  exposed. 

Another  illusion  of  the  popular  mind  which  is 
closely  allied  to  the  one  just  explained,  and  is  per- 
haps only  another  form  of  conceiving  it,  is  the  idea 
that  hypnosis  is  any  influence  of  one  person  over 
another  in  which  the  person  influenced  appears  as  a 
passive  servant  of  the  other.  I  often  find  the  asser- 
tion, when  speaking  of  any  person  who  has  appar- 
ently been  under  the  influence  of  another's  mind,  that 
"  he  was  hypnotized."  This  way  of  thinking  and 
speaking  shows  no  conception  of  what  the  psychol- 
ogist and  scientist  mean  by  hypnosis.     The  exter- 


842    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

nal  appearances  of  hypnotic  phenomena  no  doubt 
suggest  that  of  domination  and  the  influence  of  one 
will  over  another.  But  the  normal  influence  of  one 
mind  upon  another  is  one  of  intelligent  suggestion 
and  persuasion,  in  which  the  mind  influenced  is  as 
much  a  factor  in  the  result  as  the  other,  and  in  fact 
is  more  the  primary  factor,  as  the  adoption  and 
execution  of  the  suggestion  is  a  free  act.  In  true 
hypnotic  phenomena  this   freedom  is  less  apparent, 

iif  present  at  all,  because  the  process  is  subconscious. 
But  the  influence  in  normal  life  of  one  mind  upon 
another  is  not  of  the  nature  of  hypnosis  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  term.  Nothing  automatic  is 
involved,  and  nothing  subconscious  that  is  not  also 
subconscious  in  all  the  spontaneous  acts  of  the  sub- 
ject. Hence  it  is  an  entire  illusion  to  suppose  that 
the  ordinary  and  normal  influence  of  one  mind  upon 
another  is  hypnotic  and  vice  versa.  We  may  ulti- 
mately trace  connections  between  them,  but  the  dis- 
tinction is  clear  to  those  who  examine  the  facts  with 
any  care.  One  might  add  also,  that  if  they  were 
the  same  there  would  be  no  excuse  for  fearing  hyp- 
nosis, as  the  normal  influence  of  one  person  upon 
another  is  not  only  unavoidable,  but  is  also  neces- 
sary for  civilization  itself.  But  the  slightest  exami- 
nation of  the  phenomena  will  show  that  hypnotism 
is  a  wholly  diff^erent  fact  from  the  normal  communi- 
cation of  ideas  and  influence  upon  other  minds, 
though  both  may  finally  be  shown  to  contain  common 
elements.  Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  show  what  hyp- 
nosis is  not.  We  have  now  to  attempt  the  examina- 
tion of  what  it  is.     The  simplest  conception  of  it  is 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    343 

that  it  is  artificially  induced  sleep.  Of  course,  spon- 
taneous or  auto-hypnosis  and  somnambulism  are  not 
externally  and  artifically  induced,  but  they  represent 
the  same  subjective  mental  state,  as  is  proved  by 
their  suggestibility.  But  for  the  sake  of  making 
clear  what  the  majority  of  instances  are,  it  is  well 
to  associate  the  condition  with  the  method  of  pro- 
ducing it,  and  as  this  method  is  some  artificial  pro- 
cess, which  is  precisely  the  phenomenon  that  suggests 
its  magical  character,  it  serves  well  to  define,  if  not 
the  condition,  certainly  the  circumstances  associated 
with  the  phenomena.  The  subjective  state  is  so  like 
somnambulic  sleep,  though  possibly  not  identical 
with  normal  sleep  in  many  of  its  aspects,  that  the 
public  can  best  understand  its  nature  by  that  com- 
parison, and  regard  it  as  less  anomalous  and  less  to 
be  feared  than  is  customary. 

But  the  scientific  man  wants  a  more  technical 
definition  of  it,  even  though  he  recognizes  that  it 
is  an  artificially  induced  sleep.  With  him  it  must 
be  defined  by  what  it  is  as  a  mental  condition  and 
not  by  an}'^  of  its  accidents  or  associated  causes.  To 
the  scientific  man  it  is  a  condition  still  allied  to  sleep, 
but  it  has  characteristics  which  distinguish  it,  gen- 
erally at  least,  from  normal  sleep.  These  vary  much 
with  individuals.  In  some  the  condition  can  hardly 
be  distinguished  at  all  from  such  sleep.  In  others 
there  seems  to  be  no  resemblance  but  the  suspense 
of  normal  consciousness.  But  in  all  cases  perhaps 
the  fundamental  characteristic  that  distinguishes  it 
from  sleep  is  the  excessive  liability  to  suggestion. 
This  is  the  tendency  to  respond  more  or  less  auto- 


344    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

matically  to  suggestion,  or  to  ideas  indicated  to  the 
subject.  An  automatic  condition  of  the  organism 
so  often  prevails  that  this  fact  is  one  which  may  well 
serve,  if  not  always  it  may  generally,  for  a  criterion 
of  what  the  condition  is.  Just  what  this  automatic 
state  is  it  is  difficult  to  define  accurately,  but  it 
represents  in  general  the  functions  of  reflex  action, 
namely,  response  to  stimuli  without  regard  to  the 
rational  adjustment  to  the  real  circumstances  under 
which  the  subject  is  placed.  The  suspense  of  nor- 
mal sensory  processes  gives  rise  to  this  condition, 
which  is  regulated  and  held  in  check  by  normal  life. 
Once  suspended,  however,  the  inner  mental  habits 
are  maladjusted.  This,  however,  is  not  as  clear  an 
account  of  the  condition  as  is  desirable.  We  might 
call  it  a  state  of  automatism  but  for  the  fact  that 
this  has  to  be  defined  and  is  often  used  so  equivo- 
cally that  a  whole  chapter  might  be  devoted  to  it. 
It  is  certain  that  special  inhibitions  are  cut  off  in 
the  hypnotic  state,  though  the  statement  of  this  fact 
does  not  clarify  the  matter  for  the  layman.  We 
may,  however,  indicate  that  our  normal  mental  states 
are  a  system  of  coordinated  functions  acting  in  har- 
mony. That  is,  a  large  system  of  different  func- 
tions are  so  adjusted  that  they  act  in  unison  with 
reference  to  the  same  end,  which  is  adjustment  to 
our  normal  environment.  But  in  hypnosis  we  are 
cut  off  from  the  exercise  of  some  of  these  functions, 
or  as  psychiatrists  would  say,  certain  functions 
become  dissociated  from  those  with  which  they  are 
coordinated  in  the  normal  life,  and  we  act  according 
to   the   impulses    of   those   which    remain   effective. 


HYPNOTISM    AND    THERAPEUTICS    345 

Hence  the  appearance  of  automatism  or  mechanical 
actions  not  representing  the  natural  or  rational  ad- 
justment of  the  person  to  the  present  situation. 

But  I  shall  not  enter  into  any  technical  explana- 
tion of  hypnosis,  as  that  belongs  to  more  scientific 
treatises  and  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  purposes  of 
this  work.  It  should  be  said  also  that  we  really 
know  very  little  about  the  phenomenon.  Many  are 
the  theories  which  pretend  to  explain  what  it  is,  but 
students  of  it  have  got  little  farther  than  to  ascer- 
tain various  adjuncts,  physiological  and  psycholog- 
ical, of  its  occurrence.  But  exactly  what  it  is  as 
a  mental  condition  is  not  known  beyond  its  real  or 
apparent  alliances.  It  will  have  to  be  investigated 
much  more  than  it  has  been  before  it  is  perfectly 
understood,  and  we  may  never  know  as  much  about 
it  as  we  do  about  the  normal  conditions  of  the  mind. 

The  fundamental  difficulty  connected  with  it  is 
this.  We  know  directly  only  what  is  accessible  to  the 
introspection  or  observation  of  our  normal  con- 
sciousness. We  do  not  know  directly  what  goes  on 
in  the  minds  of  others.  This  we  have  to  infer  from 
their  actions,  a  fact  explained  in  the  previous  chap- 
ter. Now  in  most  of  the  forms  of  hypnosis  we  are 
not  normally  conscious  of  ourselves  or  of  what  we 
are  doing,  and  so  our  own  condition  is  subject  to 
introspection.  The  condition  of  others,  as  remarked, 
has  to  be  inferred  and  is  not  directly  known.  But 
we  have  ultimately  in  all  our  investigations  to  inter- 
pret and  understand  things  in  terms  of  our  own  con- 
scious knowledge,  that  is,  the  introspective  results 
of  our  own  experience  and  reflection.     As  we  cannot 


346    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

introspect  our  own  hypnotic  states  and  have  to  infer 
those  of  others,  we  have  no  terms  in  which  to  repre- 
sent them  inteUigibly  to  our  own  personal  knowledge. 
The  consequence  is  that  we  can  say  nothing  about 
hypnosis  except  what  is  indicated  in  its  alliances  and 
associations  or  its  effects  resembling  states  that  are 
known.  This  makes  the  investigation  of  it  an  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  task  and  one  that  must  be  extended 
over  a  long  period  of  time.  If  it  had  not  utilities 
associated  with  it  we  might  well  ignore  its  investi- 
gation, but  it  has  already  demonstrated  its  impor- 
tance both  speculatively  and  practically,  and  we  can 
hardly  escape  the  obligation  to  give  it  scientific  at- 
tention, hoping  that  time  and  patience  may  accom- 
plish something  of  what  they  have  done  in  other 
difficult  departments  of  human  knowledge.  Some  of 
its  physiological  accompaniments  are  known,  but 
little  has  been  done  to  study  its  psychological  char- 
acter. The  investigation  of  it  has  been  largely  in 
the  hands  of  medical  men,  who  are  seldom  trained  in 
psychology  either  of  the  analytical  or  experimental 
type,  and  hence  the  temptation  is  to  concentrate  at- 
tention upon  its  physiological  connections,  when  it 
is  its  psychological  character  and  associations  that 
will  probably  throw  more  light  upon  its  nature  and 
meaning  than  any  other  facts. 

The  reason  for  demanding  the  most  thorough  in- 
vestigation of  the  phenomena,  I  think,  will  be  appar- 
ent in  the  practical  results  of  hypnotic  therapeutics, 
to  which  I  wish  now  to  give  some  attention.  The 
importance  of  hypnosis  as  a  practical  agency  is  em- 
bodied   in   its   utility    as    a   therapeutic   possibility. 


HYPNOTISM    AND    THERAPEUTICS    347 

This  is  a  well-recognized  fact,  but  the  public  is  so 
deluded  in  regard  to  its  nature  that  physicians  have 
not  been  able  either  to  practise  it  or  to  discuss  it 
publicly  in  the  way  they  might  otherwise  desire.  I 
mean,  therefore,  to  give  a  number  of  illustrations 
of  its  efficiency  as  a  curative  agency  in  various  forms 
of  disease,  at  least  of  a  functional  nature. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  the  use  of  hyp- 
nosis as  a  therapeutic  does  not  indicate  to  us  what 
the  real  causes  are  of  its  influence.  All  that  we 
know  is  that,  in  certain  cases,  where  all  other  agen- 
cies failed,  this  appears  to  have  been  successful.  It 
will  require  much  more  investigation  and  statistical 
result  to  justify  any  assurance  in  regard  to  the 
nature  and  limits  of  its  efficiency.  But  sufficient  has 
been  established  by  competent  authorities  to  urge  its 
extension  in  the  field  of  medicine.  The  first  thing 
in  regard  to  its  claims  is  that  we  should  have  evidence 
enough  that  the  use  of  it  has  actually  been  effective, 
directly  or  indirectly,  and  I  think  the  indorsement 
of  such  men  as  Moll,  Kraft-Ebing,  Bemheim,  Lie- 
beault,  Janet,  Wetterstrand,  Ochorowics,  Tuckey, 
Bramwell,  and  hundreds  of  others  suffices  to  remove 
from  me  the  duty  of  any  preliminary  proof  of  these 
claims.  I  may,  therefore,  illustrate  for  the  general 
reader  the  kind  of  troubles  in  which  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion has  been  efficient  in  curative  processes. 

I  shall  start  with  instances  which  involve  disturb- 
ances not  exactly  classifiable  with  insanity,  but  which 
either  belong  to  the  phenomena  of  alternating  per- 
sonality or  are  closely  allied  to  it.     The  first  instance 


348    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

will  be  one  told  me  by  Dr.  Boris  Sidis  in  his  practice. 
I  have  to  narrate  it  from  memory. 

It  is  a  case  of  lost  personal  identity.  Such  phe- 
nomena are  of  comparative  frequency,  though  they 
may  not  last  long.  The  present  case  had  completely 
lost  all  knowledge  of  his  identity,  did  not  know  his 
own  name,  could  not  give  any  hint  of  his  home  or 
whereabouts,  and  in  fact  would  have  been  confined 
in  an  insane  asylum  by  any  other  person.  Dr.  Sidis 
proceeded  in  his  treatment  of  the  case  upon  the 
theory  that  prevails  in  hallucinations,  as  discussed 
above,  namely,  that  often  present  states  of  conscious- 
ness in  abnormal  conditions  are  due  to  secondary 
stimuli.  He  therefore  assumed  in  this  case  that  he 
might  excite  the  resurrection  of  normal  memories 
in  the  man  by  using  certain  stimuli.  He  therefore 
asked  the  man  to  tell  him  the  first  things  that  came 
into  his  mind  when  he,  Dr.  Sidis,  played  on  the  piano. 
This  was  done  and  notes  taken  of  what  the  man  said. 
The  man  did  not  consciously  recognize  anything  that 
he  said.  They  appeared  to  him  simply  as  thoughts 
aroused  by  the  music.  In  the  course  of  a  number  of 
experiments  Dr.  Sidis  came  to  the  conclusion,  from 
the  nature  of  the  statements  made  under  this  sort 
of  stimulation,  that  the  man  was  expressing  stray 
experiences  in  his  normal  life,  not  then  recognizable 
as  such,  and  in  one  case  a  name  and  incident  were 
mentioned  that  led  to  inquiry.  It  referred  to  the 
sale  of  a  wagon  and  horse  in  a  certain  town.  The 
inquiry  showed  that  the  man  had  sold  such  a  vehicle 
and  animal  in  the  place.  Continuing  the  investiga- 
tion in  this  way.  Dr.  Sidis  found  a  sufficient  number 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    349 

of  incidents,  really  memories  in  the  man's  mind,  which 
he  resorted  to  suggestion  under  hypnosis  to  remind 
him  of,  to  establish  the  fact  that  these  were  his  normal 
experiences,  and  that  he  would  recall  them  as  such 
when  he  awakened.  This  succeeded,  and  by  associat- 
ing his  new  and  abnormal  experiences  in  his  waking 
state  with  these  unconsciously  recalled  memories  he 
succeeded  in  connecting  the  abnormal  life  sufficiently 
with  his  latent  but  unrecognized  memories  of  the 
past  to  begin  the  process  of  fusing  the  two  memories 
together;  and  when  once  a  link  of  connection  was 
established  there  was  little  difficulty  in  ultimately 
getting  the  man  to  recall  much  more,  and  finally  his 
name  and  normal  memories  generally.  In  this  man- 
ner the  man's  personal  identity  was  restored,  and 
probably  this  synthesis  of  the  secondary  with  the 
primary  personality  would  make  it  extremely  unlikely 
that  any  recurrence  of  the  abnormal  condition  would 
repeat  itself. 

The  next  instance  is  also  one  which  has  to  be 
described  from  memory.  It  is  a  case  of  Dr.  Pierre 
Janet's.  He  found  a  patient  suffering  from  hallu- 
cinations, and  suspecting  from  the  nature  of  them 
that  they  might  be  traceable  to  some  earlier  shock, 
made  inquiries  to  ascertain  whether  any  fright  or 
shock  could  be  remembered.  But  the  patient  could 
recall  none  such.  Bethinking  himself  of  the  fact  of 
automatic  writing,  which  had  been  suggested  to  him 
by  his  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers, 
he  resolved  to  see  if  the  patient  could  do  any  auto- 
matic writing.  He  soon  found  that  she  could,  and 
when  suggestion  was  applied  the  patient  wrote  out 


350    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

an  account  of  a  fright  which  she  had  had  once  in 
her  life.  But  on  reading  the  account  herself  she 
could  not  recall  it.  Her  parents,  however,  remem- 
bered the  incident  very  clearly.  Taking  this  dis- 
covery as  a  clue,  Janet  unearthed  one  hallucination 
after  another  until  he  reached  the  one  caused  by  the 
shock,  and  by  means  of  hypnotic  suggestion  he  eradi- 
cated this  and  cured  the  patient.  He  had  found  that 
the  hallucinations  with  which  she  was  afflicted  when 
the  patient  came  to  him  would  not  yield  to  any  sug- 
gestion until  he  had  discovered  the  primary  instance 
of  it  associated  with  the  original  shock.  Of  course, 
one  of  the  chief  incidents  of  interest  in  the  case  is 
the  method  of  discovering  the  cause  of  the  trouble, 
the  unconscious  narration  of  it  through  automatic 
writing. 

The  Hanna  case,  again  by  Dr.  Sidis,  and  men- 
tioned briefly  under  Dissociation,  illustrates  a  similar 
method  of  treatment  and  involves  the  synthesis  of 
secondary  states  with  resurrected  memories  which 
proved  to  be  deposits  of  normal  experience.  I  can 
give  only  a  brief  account  of  it.  It  is  reported  in 
detail  in  Dr.  Sidis'  work  on  Multiple  Personality. 

The  Rev.  Hanna  had  a  fall  from  a  horse  which 
rendered  him  unconscious.  He  was  taken  up  for 
dead,  but  in  about  half  an  hour  apparently  recov- 
ered consciousness.  But  closer  examination  dis- 
covered that  he  was  not  conscious  of  anything  what- 
ever in  his  past  life.  He  had  lost  the  knowledge 
of  even  his  own  language,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
ancient  languages  which  he  had  studied  at  college. 
He  was  found  to  have  as  little  knowledge  as  a  new- 


HYPNOTISM   AND   THERAPEUTICS    351 

born  babe.  He  did  not  even  know  what  the  sense 
of  hunger  was,  and  had  to  be  taught  it  as  a  child 
by  feeding  him.  He  recognized  no  objects  whatever, 
and  words  had  no  meaning  to  him.  He  gradually 
acquired  new  meanings  for  words  as  his  daily  wants 
and  habits  suggested  them.  But  in  the  course  of  this 
order  of  things  Dr.  Sidis  found  that  he  was  having 
two  types  of  dreams,  and  he  was  asked,  after  he  had 
progressed  sufficiently  in  the  recovery  of  language, 
to  tell  the  nature  of  these  dreams.  "  They  are  of 
two  kinds,"  he  said.  "  One  is  unlike  the  other ;  in 
the  one  kind  the  pictures  are  weak,  and  I  cannot 
easily  bring  them  up  before  my  mind  clearly;  the 
other  kind  I  can  easily  see  and  feel  clearly  again,  as 
though  they  were  before  me.  The  picture  dreams 
come  in  the  morning;  they  are  not  like  the  other 
dreams ;    they  are  too  strong  and  plain." 

"  It  turned  out,"  says  Dr.  Sidis,  "  that  the  dreams 
characterized  by  Mr.  Hanna  as  '  clear  picture 
dreams,'  and  which  we  may  term  as  vivid  ones,  were 
really  experiences  that  had  occurred  m  his  former 
life.  He,  homever,  did  not  recognize  them  as  such 
and  considered  them  simply  as  strange  dreams  of  his 
present  life." 

Taking  this  fact  of  a  subconscious  and  unrecog- 
nized connection  between  Mr.  Hanna's  abnormal 
state  and  his  former  normal  life  as  his  cue.  Dr.  Sidis 
proceeded  to  use  suggestion  for  connecting  them 
consciously,  and  by  various  forms  of  inquiry  he 
ascertained  additional  instances  of  resurrected  memo- 
ries in  an  unconscious  way  and  worked  with  them  to 
restore  the  man  to  his  normal  state.     A  part  of  the 


352    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

method  employed  was  a  novel  one.  It  was  to  place 
Mr.  Hanna  amidst  new  and  exciting  scenes  for  the 
purpose  of  creating  new  curiosity  and  to  help  awaken 
him  from  the  lethargic  condition  of  his  secondary 
state.  This  was  effected  by  bringing  him  to  New 
York  and  taking  him  to  brilliantly  lighted  restau- 
rants and  to  the  theatres.  Gradually  with  this  and 
hypnotic  suggestion,  associated  with  constant  re- 
minders that  certain  incidents  of  his  experience  be- 
longed to  a  past  life,  the  man  was  completely  re- 
stored to  his  normal  condition  and  the  two  personali- 
ties fused  together.  The  story  of  the  man's  actions 
and  mental  behavior  during  this  secondary  state  and 
the  novelty  of  his  cure  reads  like  a  romance.  The 
most  interesting  features  of  it  cannot  even  be  sum- 
marized here,  as  they  would  absorb  too  much  space. 
They  are  well  worth  the  reader's  curiosity. 

It  is  not  hypnotic  suggestion  or  the  use  of  hyp- 
notism that  is  the  most  interesting  or  the  most  im- 
portant aspect  of  these  instances.  It  is  the  accom- 
panying use  of  psychological  analysis  and  the  appli- 
cation of  its  principles  of  association  and  dissociation 
that  are  the  significant  features  of  the  therapeutics 
applied.  One  might  even  minimize  the  importance 
of  hypnosis  in  the  cases,  if  only  for  emphasizing  this 
novel  employment  of  associative  synthesis  in  the 
restoration  of  functional  normality.  It  is,  of  course, 
probable  that  hypnosis  was  as  important  a  factor  in 
the  results  as  any  other  agency,  but  it  is  apparent 
that  it  is  not  the  only  agency.  It  may  have  had  its 
work  limited  to  the  discovery  and  development  of 
the  facts  which  rendered  associative  synthesis  appli- 


HYPNOTISM    AND    THERAPEUTICS    353 

cable.  But  whether  so  or  not  —  and  we  are  still 
ignorant  of  its  exact  relation  to  the  matter  —  the 
important  thing  to  remark  is  the  place  of  normal 
and  abnormal  psychology  in  the  understanding  of 
the  real  difficulties  and  their  remedy  in  the  use  of 
functional  agencies  of  the  mind.  There  is  no  reason 
why  this  means  should  not  be  employed  on  a  large 
scale.  It  is  probable  that  many  similar  instances 
are  languishing  in  the  insane  asylums  for  lack  of 
the  knowledge  to  understand  and  treat  them  rightly. 
Dr.  Morton  Prince  in  the  investigation  and  discus- 
sion of  his  remarkable  case,  summarized  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  the  case  of  Miss  Beauchamp,  remarks 
that  she  is  one  of  a  type  that  would  have  been  placed 
in  an  asylum  and  become  incurable  but  for  the  study 
and  treatment  of  the  trouble  from  the  knowledge 
of  association  and  dissociation  of  mental  phenomena. 
The  Ansel  Bourne  case,  also  discussed  previously, 
is  one  that  would  have  suffered  from  the  same  neglect 
or  maltreatment  had  it  fallen  into  the  hands  of  phy- 
sicians who  had  known  him  in  his  normal  state.  He 
was  thought  insane,  and  naturally  enough,  by  the 
physician  who  was  called  in  to  examine  him  after 
his  sudden  awakening  in  Norristown,  Pa.  He  was 
actually  adjudged  insane  when  he  returned  from  his 
abnormal  condition!  The  fact  is  that  a  better 
knowledge  of  psychology  in  matters  of  subconscious 
mental  action  and  secondary  personality  would  lead 
to  a  better  criterion  of  insanity  and  save  many  a 
victim  both  the  humiliation  and  the  expense  of  the 
rude  methods  which  so  many  of  our  public  institu- 
tions apply  in  the  treatment  of  the  insane.     I  do 


354    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

not  speak  here  of  organic  mental  disease,  but  only 
what  is  called  functional,  which  often  simulates  the 
organic  in  its  symptoms.  A  more  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  psychology  would  lead  to  measures  and 
means  for  distinguishing  more  carefully  between  the 
two  types  and  to  separate  methods  of  treatment. 
Hypnotic  suggestion  would  be  only  a  part  of  this 
method.  It  would  probably  serve  first  to  aid  in  the 
discovery  of  facts  which  would  lead  to  correct  diag- 
nosis and  then  act  as  a  supplementary  agent  in  the 
therapeutics  applied;  the  synthesis  of  primary  and 
secondary  experiences  being  added  to  its  agency  in 
effecting  cures.  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  cases 
confined  in  asylums  might  thus  receive  effective  treat- 
ment, which  become  incurable  under  present  methods 
when  psychological  analysis  is  not  employed  as  a 
useful  instrument.  Indeed,  I  may  refer  to  one  case 
of  Dr.  Sidis  in  this  connection.  A  lady  was  brought 
to  him  who  had  been  confined  in  an  asylum  for  two 
years  with  what  was  diagnosed  as  hemiplegia.  He 
found  on  examination  that  her  trouble  was  only 
amnesia,  or  defective  memory,  amounting  to  second- 
ary personality.  He  easily  cured  the  case  by  hyp- 
notic suggestion  and  his  methods,  and  apparently 
the  cure  was  permanent. 

I  shall  turn  now  to  some  other  types  of  functional 
troubles.  Dr.  Bramwell  quotes  the  details  of  115 
cases,  including  such  troubles  as  hysteria,  neuras- 
thenia, obsessions,  alcoholism,  and  various  others, 
where  the  therapeutic  agency  was  hypnotic  or  normal 
suggestion.  I  quote  one  illustration  for  the  sake  of 
its  clearness. 


HYPNOTISM    AND    THERAPEUTICS    355 

"  Mile.  ,  aged  23,  after  an  accident  at  15, 

suffered  from  sickness,  headache,  constipation,  ver- 
tigo, spinal  neuralgia,  muscular  weakness,  insomnia, 
nocturnal  terrors,  etc.  Treatment:  Drugging,  elec- 
tricity, washing  out  of  the  stomach,  etc.  Result,  nil. 
Hypnotized:   recovered.    No  relapse." 

The  narrative  of  hundreds  of  such  cases  with  vary- 
ing and  more  striking  details  make  instructive  read- 
ing for  those  who  have  it  in  their  power  to  help  in 
the  organization  of  careful  inquiry  and  the  enlarg- 
ing of  facilities  for  the  proper  application  of  such 
methods.  To  enforce  this  I  may  refer  to  Dr.  Bram- 
welPs  summary  of  the  228  cases  of  neurasthenia 
which  Baron  Von  Schrenck-Notzing  collected,  and 
which  were  subjected  to  hypnosis  and  its  therapeutic 
agency.  The  first  table  represents  the  instances  to 
which  hypnosis  was  applied.  The  table  omits  8 
cases  from  the  whole  number,  6  of  them  not  having 
the  stage  of  hypnosis  mentioned  and  2  having  been 
treated  without  hypnosis  and  by  normal  suggestion. 

I.     HYPNOTIC 

70  cases,  31.8  per  cent,  slight  hypnosis  induced, 
134  cases,  60.9  per  cent,  deep  hypnosis  induced. 
16  cases,    7.3  per  cent,  no  hypnosis. 

II.      THERAPEUTIC 

72  cases,  31.6  per  cent,  recovered. 

84  cases,  35.8  per  cent,  much  improved. 

72  cases,  31.6  per  cent,  no  improvement. 

Therapeutic  suggestion  had  an  effect  in  68  per  cent, 
of  the  cases,  though  less  than  one-third  of  the  whole 
number  recovered  completely. 


356    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Of  chronic  alcoholism  Dr.  Bramwell  reports  76 
cases  in  his  own  practice,  with  the  following  results. 
I  quote  his  statements. 

"  Recoveries,  —  Twenty-eight  cases  recovered :  by 
this  I  mean  that  the  patients  ceased  drinking  during 
treatment;  and  that,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
learn,  they  have  remained  total  abstainers  up  to  the 
present  date,  or  to  that  of  the  last  report  received. 
Although  the  earliest  of  these  cases  has  now  passed 
ten  years  without  relapse,  I  will  not  describe  the 
patient  as  '  cured,'  for  it  is  possible  that  the  disease 
may  return :  one  of  my  patients  relapsed  after  eight 
years  of  total  abstinence. 

"  Of  the  above  28  cases,  17  were  males  and  11 
females.  The  average  age  was  40.  Average  number 
of  hypnotic  treatments,  30.  Average  length  of  time 
since  recovery,  3  years. 

"  Cases  improved,  —  These  numbered  36  —  26 
males  and  10  females.  Average  age,  39.  Average 
number  of  hypnotic  treatments,  32.  Average  length 
of  time  since  treatment,  3  1-3  years." 

There  were  12  failures,  10  males  and  2  females. 
A  characteristic  of  them  was  that  they  would  not 
cease  drinking  during  the  treatment.  But  64,  or  84 
per  cent.,  showed  the  influence  of  therapeutic  sug- 
gestion, while  34  per  cent,  seem  to  represent  more  or 
less  permanent  cures. 

The  application  of  hypnotic  treatment  to  vicious 
and  degenerate  children  shows  remarkable  results. 
They  could  be  made  clear  only  by  lengthy  quotation 
of  instances.  I  shall  quote  only  one  illustration  of 
it  as  a  sample. 


HYPNOTISM    AND   THERAPEUTICS    357 

"  Miss  ,  aged  13,  March,  1894.     Bad  family 

history.  Before  the  patient  was  born  her  mother 
suffered  from  melancholia.  The  child  herself  had 
been  mentally  peculiar  from  infancy;  she  was  per- 
fectly untruthful,  deceitful,  insolent,  and  dirty  in 
her  habits.  She  had  been  addicted  to  self -abuse  since 
the  age  of  7.  On  several  occasions  she  had  stolen 
money  from  servants  and  others  —  sometimes  con- 
siderable amounts.  She  had  been  expelled  from 
school,  and  had  to  be  kept  at  home.  She  was  strong, 
healthy,  and  well-grown,  with  nothing  abnormal 
about  the  head  or  palate. 

"  After  consultation  with  Dr.  Savage,  the  patient 
was  hypnotized  three  times  a  week  from  March  to 
May,  1894;  this  was  followed  by  marked  improve- 
ment, and  the  treatment  was  repeated  at  intervals 
during  the  next  two  years.  Complete  recovery  took 
place,  and  up  to  the  present  date  (1903)  there  has 
been  no  relapse." 

Another  case  of  striking  interest.     "  Miss  » 

aged  22,  April,  1895,  had  suffered  from  fits  of 
violent  passion  since  early  childhood.  She  was  so 
little  able  to  control  herself  that  her  mother  often 
feared  she  might  kill  her  sister,  and  she  still  (1895) 
often  came  to  blows  with  her  younger  brother.  She 
had  always  been  intensely  selfish,  and  could  not  see 
why  she  should  do  anything  for  others.  She  ad- 
mitted her  defects  of  character  without  shame,  and 
said  she  heartily  enjoyed  quarrelling  and  setting 
others  by  the  ears.  She  consented  in  the  waking 
state  that  I  should  try  to  alter  her  character,  and 
I  suggested  during  hypnosis  that  she  should  give  up 


358    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

quarrelling,  and  take  a  pleasure  in  helping  others. 
A  complete  change  took  place:  she  became  affection- 
ate, good-tempered,  and  helpful.  Even  when  ill 
there  was  no  trace  of  her  former  irritability.  Up 
to  the  present  date  (1903)  there  has  been  no  relapse." 

Dr.  Bramwell  reports  12  such  cases.  Dr.  Lloyd 
Tuckey  a  number  of  others,  and  Berillon  and  Lie- 
beault  and  Wetterstrand  do  the  same,  and  sixteen 
less  well-known  men  have  had  the  same  experience. 

Liebeault  mentions  77  cases  of  ermresis  nocturna, 
45  boys  and  32  girls,  the  trouble  dating  from  birth, 
with  an  average  age  of  7,  the  youngest  being  3  and 
the  oldest  18  years  of  age,  in  whom  hypnotic  treat- 
ment yielded  56  recoveries,  9  improvements,  8  fail- 
ures, and  4,  seen  but  once  and  not  returning,  were 
supposably  cured.  CuUerre  reports  24  cases  of  the 
same  trouble,  of  which  there  w^ere  21  recoveries. 

These  are  samples  of  the  results  in  juvenile  de- 
generacy and  reflex  troubles,  and  it  is  apparent 
from  uniform  experience  that  a  better  knowledge 
as  well  as  better  facilities  for  the  use  of  suggestion 
might  lead  to  a  wide  extension  of  hypnotic  treatment 
for  similar  difficulties.  There  is  no  reason  but  con- 
servative stupidity  that  prevents  the  more  effective 
organization  and  application  of  suggestive  thera- 
peutics to  cases  of  the  various  kinds  illustrated.  In 
this  country  the  whole  subject,  in  so  far  as  the  public 
is  concerned,  is  left  to  charlatans  for  its  knowledge 
and  use  of  hypnosis.  The  reputable  physician, 
though  he  often  uses  it,  has  to  be  careful  not  to  be 
too  well  known  regarding  his  practice  of  it.  He  will 
not  see  that  it  is  adequately  investigated  from  its 


HYPNOTISM    AND    THERAPEUTICS    359 

psychological  side  and  that  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
best  men  for  all  purposes  to  which  it  can  be  applied. 
In  Europe  the  subject  seems  to  have  been  placed 
under  better  recognition  and  control,  and  the  liberty 
of  the  individual  in  this  country  has  tended  to  set 
up  that  discrimination  between  charlatan  methods 
and  scientific  agencies  which  corresponds  to  the 
social  and  intellectual  distinctions  in  the  Old  World, 
hypnotism  flavoring  of  quackery  and  magic.  I 
speak,  of  course,  from  the  standpoint  of  public  con- 
ceptions. The  scientific  physician  recognizes  the 
value  of  therapeutic  suggestion  and  often  enough 
uses  it,  but  the  knowledge  of  its  nature  and  its  place 
as  a  specific  in  the  treatment  of  various  diseases  are 
not  the  subject  of  such  scientific  investigation  as  they 
deserve.  The  subject  still  wants  that  accurate 
knowledge  which  characterizes  most  other  fields  of 
physiology  and  psychology. 

I  am  not  here  defending  hypnosis  and  suggestive 
therapeutics  as  a  universal  specific.  I  am  far  from 
regarding  them  as  such.  The  failures  in  their  appli- 
cation are  proofs  that  we  have  not  yet  the  right 
to  attach  so  large  a  faith  in  them.  In  fact,  it  may 
not  be  best  for  man  to  have  any  universal  specific 
but  morality.  However  this  may  be,  suggestion  is 
not  more  than  one  of  the  agencies  which  are  our  re- 
source in  such  maladies  as  I  have  illustrated,  and 
all  that  I  should  contend  for  is  that  it  be  the  subject 
of  a  more  patient  scientific  investigation  from  the 
psychological  point  of  view  than  is  usual  in  medical 
institutions.  It  has  demonstrated  its  usefulness 
beyond  all  doubt,  and  whatever  the  humanities  and 


V 


360    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

economies  of  civilization  demand,  it  is  one  of  the 
agents  that  the  organized  treatment  of  functional 
diseases  cannot  intelligently  ignore.  The  proper 
use  of  it  may  put  an  end  to  some  of  the  follies  that 
infect  large  numbers  of  the  community  in  their  well- 
meant  but  criminal  or  insane  application  of  "  meta- 
physical "  methods. 


CHAPTER    XII 


REINCARNATION 


There  has  been  a  curious  revival  in  recent  times  of 
the  idea  of  reincarnation.  It  is  probably  due  to  the 
combined  influence  of  Oriental  philosophy,  the  belief 
in  immortality,  the  decline  of  the  doctrine  of  a  phys- 
ical resurrection,  and  the  confusion  produced  by  the 
philosophy  of  Descartes  taken  in  connection  with  the 
belief  in  immortality.  The  ideas  in  these  various  sys- 
tems are  not  always,  if  ever,  consistent  with  each 
other,  but  their  use  of  a  common  language  conceals 
their  contradictions,  and  it  is  time  to  expose  the  illu- 
sions to  which  a  half-baked  philosophy  gives  rise. 

There  is  perhaps  no  belief  of  man  which  shows 
more  pliability  and  persistence  than  the  belief  in  a 
future  life.  Man  seems  determined,  "  by  hook  or  by 
crook,"  if  I  may  adopt  such  a  phrase,  to  believe  in 
his  survival  after  death.  When  he  finds  a  set  of  facts 
which  seem  to  make  it  impossible  or  improbable,  he 
invents  some  conception  by  which  he  may  still  cling 
to  it,  and  he  does  not  always  stop  to  think  whether  his 
new  view  is  consistent  with  his  knowledge  and  desires 
or  not.  He  is  satisfied  if  he  can  conjure  up  some 
means  to  delude  his  mind  of  despair.  He  is  deter- 
mined to  hope  against  fact,  and  he  will  ignore  facts 

361 


362    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

to  keep  his  hope  alive.  Hence  when  any  philosophy 
comes  along  to  disturb  the  equanimity  of  his  faith 
he  turns  to  some  analogies,  physical  or  otherwise, 
for  the  redemption  of  his  ideals,  and  reimbodies  his 
religion  in  a  new  system  of  doctrine.  In  doing  so, 
however,  he  may  forget  how  much  truth  he  owes  to 
the  philosophies  which  have  disturbed  his  faith,  and 
in  the  effort  to  get  away  from  them  he  entangles 
himself  in  the  meshes  of  a  worse  doctrine. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  examine  the  meaning  of  re- 
incarnation as  a  step  in  the  criticism  of  doctrines 
embodied  in  the  same  term  to-day,  and  which  in  fact 
have  no  clear  affiliation  with  the  ancient  conception  of 
it.  I  take  Plato  as  the  most  explicit  representative 
of  it  in  Greek  thought.  With  him  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  and  reincarnation  were  convertible  terms. 
He  was  not  the  first  to  believe  in  a  future  life  among 
his  race.  Socrates  held  it,  and  perhaps  in  a  personal 
sense.  But  Plato  understood  better  the  general 
genius  of  his  age,  which  was  not  characterized  by 
as  definite  respect  for  personality  of  any  kind  as  for 
the  unity  of  nature.  In  the  polytheistic  stage  of 
reflection  there  was  no  sense  of  the  unity  of  things, 
and  the  anthropomorphic  conception  of  the  gods 
offended  the  early  philosophers  so  much  that  the  first 
step  in  their  reform  was  the  assertion  of  monotheism, 
which  was,  to  the  Greeks,  but  another  phrase  for  the 
unity  of  nature,  since  the  gods  were  but  forces  of 
nature  capitalized.  When  the  unity  of  nature  was 
once  seized,  the  problem  of  change  came  before  spec- 
ulation, and  in  Heraclitus  tended  to  destroy  this 
unity  and  permanence.    But  his  doctrine  was  quickly 


REINCARNATION  363 

corrected  bj  the  observation  of  continuity  of  kind, 
resemblances  of  type  in  the  order  of  birth  and  death. 
The  unity  of  causation  in  the  monotheistic  or  pan- 
theistic idea  was  supplemented  by  the  unity  of  type 
in  the  order  of  time,  or  the  evolution  of  species. 
What  attracted  and  fascinated  the  mind  of  Greek 
thinkers  was  the  ever  changing  and  yet  ever  renew- 
ing types  of  organic  beings.  Nothing  perished  with- 
out either  leaving  behind  it  a  similar  species  to  take 
its  place  or  reappearing  again  in  another  form  like 
that  which  had  perished.  The  ever  recurring  reap- 
pearance of  life  in  spite  of  change  and  death  accorded 
with  the  idea  that  something  was  permanent,  and  they 
conceived  the  cause  of  it  to  be  the  imperishableness 
of  certain  realities,  even  though  it  was  only  of  the 

type. 

Plato  seized  this  view  of  things  to  give  it  philo- 
sophic form  and  expression.  He  was  an  irreconcilable 
antagonist  to  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus,  namely, 
the  philosophy  of  change  and  destruction  of  all 
things.  He  found  some  things  permanent,  as  he 
thought,  and  to  secure  this  view  he  insisted  that  the 
unity  of  kind  in  objects  and  organic  beings  repre- 
sented a  substance  that  was  permanent  and  indestruc- 
tible. He  thought  that,  if  change  were  the  sole  law 
of  phenomena,  things  should  never  show  identity  of 
kind  in  the  course  of  succeeding  events.  Hence  the 
fact  that  the  same  kind  of  things  constantly  reap- 
peared was  to  him  evidence  that  there  was  something 
persistent  and  that  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus,  or 
the  phenomenalists,  was  false.  He  conceded  that 
sensible  things  disappeared,  that  is,  that  the  sensible 


364    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

individual  vanished,  but  he  held  that  the  material  out 
of  which  this  individual  was  constituted  reappeared 
in  others. 

The  great  strength  of  this  claim  rested  upon  a 
fundamental  postulate  of  Greek  thought.  This  was 
active  and  prevailed  from  the  earliest  period  of  spec- 
ulation. The  philosophers  early  conceived  that  the 
created  orders  of  beings  was  composed  of  elements. 
The  whole  sensible  world  was  conceived  as  constituted 
or  made  out  of  elementary  matter.  At  first  these 
elements  were  only  four  in  number.  In  Democritus 
they  were  made  innumerable,  and  Anaxagoras  held  to 
the  same  view,  though  he  thought  them  different  in 
kind  while  Democritus  thought  them  the  same  in  kind. 
But  the  idea  of  these  thinkers  was  that  all  things  were 
composed  of  these  elements  and  that  death  was  the 
dissolution  of  the  organic  or  composite  whole  into  its 
elements,  which  again  entered  into  other  complex 
organisms.  Democritus  could  not  easily  explain  the 
differences  in  things,  because  all  his  elements  were  ex- 
actly alike  in  kind.  Anaxagoras  had  no  perplexity 
on  this  point,  because  his  elements,  "  homoiomeriae," 
were  different  in  kind  and  carried  with  their  trans- 
migration from  one  being  to  another  the  qualities 
which  determined  alike  their  resemblances  and  differ- 
ences. But  the  main  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  the 
fundamental  asstrniption  was  that  substance  is  im- 
perishable and  passes  from  generation  to  generation^ 
constituting  the  matter  out  of  which  the  individual 
is  made.  The  majority  of  the  philosophers  probably 
conceived  the  elements  as  atomic,  and  only  the  Eleatics 
as  an  all-pervasive  substance  metamorphosing  itself 


REINCARNATION  365 

into  the  variety  of  beings  which  we  observe.  But  both 
the  atomic  and  the  Eleatic  types  of  thought  agreed 
that  things  were  to  be  explained  by  the  material  that 
constituted  their  nature.  That  which  appeared  per- 
manent in  individuals  was  the  matter  which  deter- 
mined their  resemblances,  and  other  characteristics 
were  evanescent. 

We  can  easily  perceive  in  this,  the  ancestry  of 
Plato's  doctrine  of  reincarnation  of  the  soul.  It  was 
not  a  doctrine  limited  to  the  soul,  but  a  universal  law 
of  the  real  world,  whether  material  or  spiritual.  In 
fact  the  spiritual  world  for  him  and  the  Greeks,  as 
we  have  already  seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  was  only 
a  fine  kind  of  matter  or  ether.  Reincarnation  was 
then  the  law  of  all  reality.  All  changes  were  simply 
the  dissolution  of  the  individual  and  the  reappearance 
in  other  individuals  of  the  elements  or  substance  that 
had  constituted  previous  individuals.  With  Plato 
the  soul  was  not  a  phenomenal  function  of  atomic 
elements,  but  was  a  kind  of  substance,  and  must  per- 
sist according  to  the  fundamental  assumption  of 
Greek  thought.  The  individual,  as  he  was  sensibly 
perceived  or  known,  was  composed  of  "  matter  "  or 
grosser  physical  reality,  and  this  perished,  but  the 
essential  characteristic,  which  consisted  of  the  "  uni- 
versal"  or  common  qualities  of  the  species,  did  not 
perish.  They  were  transmitted  from  one  generation 
to  another,  and  reappeared  to  make  this  resemblance 
and  to  illustrate  the  permanence  of  some  substances 
at  least.  The  soul  was  subject  to  constant  reimbodi- 
ment  simply  as  a  law  of  nature  and  substance. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  broad  general  principles  of 


366    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

Greek  thought  in  order  to  represent  the  point  of  view 
from  which  Plato  approached  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality which  he  conceived  in  the  form  of  reincarnation 
or  the  transmigration  of  the  soul.  With  the  Greek 
nothing  perished  in  its  elements,  but  the  organization 
perished.  The  substance  of  things  remained  per- 
manent, but  this  substance  changed  its  forms,  so  that 
the  individual  disappeared.  As  the  soul  was  a  sub- 
stance like  all  others,  it  was  supposed  to  change  its 
form  of  manifestation  and  so  lost  its  individuality. 
This  conception  enabled  Plato  to  maintain  that  the 
soul,  at  death,  survived  in  some  other  embodiment. 
But  it  lost  its  personal  identity.  There  was  no  mem- 
ory of  its  previous  existence.  He  had  his  system  of 
rewards  and  punishments  which  might  serve  for  an 
intermediate  state  until  another  embodiment  took 
place.  But  the  fact  is  that  this  idea  of  an  intermedi- 
ate state  by  Plato  was  a  mythical  representation  of 
his  more  philosophic  doctrine  of  transmigration. 
The  reward  of  the  good  was  described  as  a  life  with 
the  gods  and  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  as  a  pro- 
bation in  another  animal  life.  But  when  the  mythical 
elements  of  this  view  were  stripped  off,  its  real  charac- 
ter was  that  of  the  reappearance  of  the  same  qualities 
in  subsequent  generations  that  had  appeared  in  the 
ancestors.  There  was  no  memory  of  the  past  exist- 
ence. The  effects  of  one's  life  might  appear  in  a 
subsequent  reincarnation,  but  the  experiences  which 
produced  these  effects  could  not  be  recalled.  Hence 
Plato's  doctrine  of  reincarnation  was  inconsistent 
with  a  personal  immortality. 

A  personal  immortality  or  future  life  implies  the 


REINCARNATION  867 

retention  of  memory,  the  same  consciousness  in  gen- 
eral as  in  the  material  embodiment.  How  this  is  possi- 
ble is  not  the  question,  but  the  conception  of  the  term 
which  shall  define  the  issue.  This  is  that  personal 
survival  shall  involve  a  memory  of  the  past  earthly 
life.  Unless  this  is  involved  in  a  doctrine  of  reincar- 
nation it  cannot  be  distinguished  practically  from 
annihilation  or  materialism.  It  succeeds  only  in  dis- 
guising its  import  by  using  the  word  immortality, 
but  not  its  meaning  as  understood  since  the  introduc- 
tion of  Christian  modes  of  thought.  The  distinction 
between  Greek  and  Christian  modes  of  thought  on  this 
point  is  radical,  except  in  so  far  as  the  Epicurean 
conception  can  be  converted  into  the  Christian  by 
showing  that  the  ethereal  organism,  which  it  supposed, 
is  not  perishable  at  death  as  asserted.  The  develop- 
ment of  materialism  since  that  period  has  been  toward 
the  abandonment  of  this  idea  and  the  adoption  of  the 
more  consistent  view  of  previous  Greek  thought, 
which  conceived  all  change  as  involving  the  loss  of 
sensible  qualities  and  the  disappearance  of  the  results 
of  composition.  Reembodiment  meant  the  union  with 
other  elements  in  which  the  individual  characteristics 
of  the  former  embodiment  do  not  recur.  Hence  mod- 
ern materialism  returned  to  that  point  of  view  which 
represented  the  most  general  conception  characteriz- 
ing Greek  speculation,  which  was  the  permanence  of 
substance,  but  the  ephemeral  character  of  its  manifes- 
tations. Christian  thought  resented  this  view  in  ap- 
plication to  the  soul,  and  insisted  that  if  immortality 
was  to  be  distinguished  at  all  from  the  metamorphoses 
of  substance  or  the  reembodiment  of  similar  qualities 


368    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

in  successive  generations,  it  must  be  personal  and 
represent  the  retention  of  at  least  the  main  general 
quality  constituting  the  individual,  namely,  conscious- 
ness and  memory. 

Now  there  is  nothing  clearer  than  the  fact  that 
reincarnation  implies  that,  in  the  various  embodi- 
ments of  the  soul,  it  is  the  same  soul  that  is  reincar- 
nated. The  very  conception  of  the  doctrine  implies 
this.  But  whatever  identity  exists  in  these  transmi- 
grations, the  soul  is  not  aware  of  the  fact,  unless  we 
accept  the  statements  of  certain  people  regarding 
incidents  supposed  to  prove  it.  We  must  distinguish, 
however,  between  two  things  in  the  doctrine.  They 
are  the  identity  of  the  soul  in  its  different  incarna- 
tions and  the  consciousness  of  identity.  I  can  imag- 
ine, after  the  analogies  of  primary  and  secondary 
personalities  associated  with  the  same  organism,  that 
the  soul  might  change  its  embodiment  and  lose  its  con- 
sciousness of  identity.  Hence  the  actual  identity  of 
the  soul  in  its  different  incarnations  might  be  a  fact 
without  implying  or  involving  any  personal  conscious- 
ness of  that  identity.  But  it  is  important  to  remark 
that,  if  there  be  no  consciousness  of  that  identity,  the 
reincarnation  is  no  better  than  annihilation  for  us. 
It  is  personality  that  we  want,  if  survival  is  to  be  in 
any  way  interesting  to  us,  and  not  only  personality, 
but  we  want  a  personal  consciousness  of  this  personal 
identity.  This  would  be  to  us  not  only  the  evidence 
of  this  identity  of  subject,  but  also  the  only  fact  that 
interests  us  in  the  problem  of  survival.  An  identity 
of  subject  or  substance  without  a  retention  of  our 
memories  would  have  neither  interest  nor  moral  im- 


REINCARNATION  369 

portance  for  us.  With  Plato  reincarnation  frankly 
abandoned  the  consciousness  of  the  past  embodiment, 
and  the  only  identity  left  was  that  of  the  substance 
which  entered  into  the  different  reincarnations. 

The  fundamental  question  that  arises  is,  "  What 
evidence  have  we  that  any  reincarnation  whatever, 
whether  personal  or  impersonal,  takes  place.''  "  We 
must  remember  that  Plato  did  not  pretend  to  produce 
scientific  evidence  for  his  claims.  He  made  his  doc- 
trine a  corollary  of  the  persistence  of  substance.  As 
the  Greek  mind  was  possessed  with  the  idea  that  sub- 
stance was  eternal,  it  could  only  assume  that  the  soul 
was  eternal  the  moment  that  it  accepted  its  substan- 
tial nature.  But  it  was  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
this  permanence  of  substance  did  not  involve  the  per- 
manence of  its  phenomenal  modes  or  functions. 
Hence  its  reincarnation  theories  did  not  involve  the 
persistence  of  personal  identity.  The  "  evidence " 
of  the  reincarnation  was  merely  a  deduction  from  the 
general  theory  of  substance. 

In  modern  times,  however,  there  has  been  more  of 
an  attempt  to  produce  evidence  in  support  of  the  doc- 
trine, though  it  has  been  colored  by  the  influence  of 
Christian  conceptions  after  the  Platonic  was  forgot- 
ten. The  sense  of  the  need  of  identity  and  survival, 
even  though  not  personal,  was  reinforced  by  the 
skeptical  tendency  to  deny  the  existence  of  a  soul 
altogether;  that  is,  by  the  materialistic  theory,  as  a 
condition  of  believing  in  a  soul  at  all.  There  has  not 
been  adequate  consciousness,  however,  of  the  fact 
that,  unless  this  soul  retains  a  personal  consciousness 
of  its  identity,  the  reincarnation  doctrine  was  of  no 


370    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

practical  use.  But  concessions  have  been  made  to  the 
demand  for  evidence  in  deference  to  the  desire  to 
maintain  some  doctrine  of  a  future  life. 

This  attempt  to  produce  evidence  takes  three 
forms.  (1)  Some  appeal  to  mental  and  physical 
characteristics  which  noticeably  reproduce  in  some 
individual  resemblances  to  some  past  historical  per- 
son or  persons.  (2)  Some  appeal  to  the  recognition 
of  scenes  and  events  which  it  can  be  proved  they  had 
not  personally  witnessed  at  the  time  of  their  occur- 
rence. (3)  Some  appeal  to  their  personal  memories 
of  a  previous  existence. 

In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  claims  of  evidence, 
I  do  not  think  any  intelligent  person  would  treat  it 
seriously.  The  morphological  resemblances  in  the 
human  race  are  such  that  coincidental  identities  in 
different  generations  can  have  absolutely  no  signif- 
icance for  reincarnation  theories.  If  they  did  we 
should  expect  to  find  certain  other  associated  resem- 
blances which  we  do  not  in  fact  find.  Moreover,  the 
fact  of  heredity  is  against  the  probability  of  secur- 
ing any  such  evidence  as  would  be  necessary  to  prove 
the  transmigration  of  souls.  Then,  again,  the  appeal 
to  resemblances  would  prove  too  much.  The  striking 
resemblances  between  parents  and  children  might  be 
adduced  to  prove  reincarnation  of  the  parents  in  the 
children,  but  all  doctrines  of  reincarnation  require 
the  previous  death  of  the  reincarnated  soul.  In  the 
present  assumption  both  generations  are  simultane- 
ous. In  other  words,  we  cannot  suppose  that  the 
parents  are  reincarnated  in  their  children  without 
abandoning  that  conception   of  the   doctrine  which 


REINCARNATION  371 

has  been  the  accepted  one  from  time  immemorial,  and 
so  altering  the  meaning  of  our  terms  as  to  make  the 
theory  absurd  or  useless,  a  mere  statement  of  the 
observed  resemblance  of  the  two  sets  of  individuals. 
In  fact,  we  cannot  look  at  such  alleged  evidence  with- 
out rejecting  it  as  absurd  and  unintelligent.  It  can- 
not be  advanced  by  any  one  who  understands  the 
problem. 

The  second  and  third  types  of  alleged  evidence  are 
more  interesting.  But  I  shall  treat  them  as  most 
probably  illusions  of  memory.  I  shall  not  question 
the  existence  of  human  experiences,  which  seem  as 
real  as  those  which  constitute  the  largest  part  of  our 
normal  life.  But  I  think  that  we  can  make  it  quite 
as  clear  that  they  are  not  what  they  appear  to  be. 

We  are  all  aware  that  our  memory  is  liable  to  mis- 
takes in  its  reproductions.  These  errors  and  illu- 
sions are  very  familiar  to  us  in  our  ordinary  expe- 
riences, and  we  scarcely  need  to  be  told  of  them  to 
recognize  the  fact.  But  in  extraordinary  experiences 
we  are  likely  to  forget  this  law  of  mental  action  and 
to  increase  our  illusions  by  adding  one  of  interpre- 
tation to  one  of  reproduction.  The  fact,  however, 
that  we  are  exposed  to  mnemonic  illusions  is  one  to 
make  us  pause  in  founding  upon  apparent  memories 
of  a  past  or  of  places  that  we  have  never  experi- 
enced so  vast  a  doctrine  as  that  of  reincarnation.  I 
shall  quote  some  illustrations  of  mnemonic  illusion 
which  will  reinforce  the  contention  here  advanced. 

I  have  a  personal  friend  who  is  an  officer  in  one 
of  the  large  universities  of  this  country  and  who 
was  once  engaged  in  conversation  with  a  judge  of 


\ 


372    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  courts  around  a  fireplace.  They  had  come  in 
from  hearing  a  poHtical  speech,  and  entered  into 
conversation  about  it  and  various  reminiscences,  when 
in  the  course  of  it,  my  friend  remarked  that  he  re- 
membered the  Harrison  campaign.  He  went  on  to 
describe  the  processions,  the  songs,  and  doggerel 
poetry,  and  recalled  incident  after  incident  of  that 
memorable  campaign.  The  judge  recognized  the 
correctness  and  accuracy  of  the  incidents,  but  re- 
marked that  he  did  not  know  his  friend  was  so  old 
as  this  recollection  implied.  His  friend  remarked, 
"  Oh,  yes.  I  am  old  enough  to  remember  it."  The 
judge  asked  him  how  old  he  was,  and  the  friend  re- 
plied that  he  was  bom  in  1847.  The  judge  thought 
he  must  be  mistaken,  and  said  so,  but  his  friend 
replied  that  he  was  not,  and  that  he  could  certainly 
remember  his  birthday.  The  judge  then  politely 
recalled  the  man's  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Har- 
rison campaign  had  taken  place  in  1840.  The 
friend's  historical  knowledge  at  once  informed  him 
that  the  judge  was  correct,  and  he  went  away  com- 
pletely at  a  loss  to  account  for  his  memory.  He  felt 
personally  confident  that  his  memory  was  correct, 
but  his  other  and  historical  knowledge  showed  that 
he  was  wrong.  That  night  when  he  had  retired,  it 
all  at  once  occurred  to  him  that  when  his  mother 
died,  in  1855,  he  was  sent,  a  child  of  eight  years, 
to  live  with  his  uncles.  The  chief  incident  in  the 
memories  of  these  uncles,  in  a  rural  community,  was 
their  part  in  the  Harrison  campaign  in  1840,  and 
they  used  to  entertain  him  and  their  neighbors  with 
rehearsals  of  its  scenes,  processions,  songs,  poetry, 


REINCARNATION  673 

banners,  and  aU  the  paraphernalia  of  such  occasions. 
All  this  had  so  possessed  the  infant  imagination  of 
my  friend  that  it  was  a  real  thing  to  him,  and  all 
that  his  memory  could  reproduce  was  the  mental  pic- 
tures of  what  he  had  seen  and  its  association  with 
the  name  of  Harrison.  As  a  child  he  did  not,  and 
perhaps  could  not,  distinguish  between  the  real  and 
the  reproduced  incidents  of  that  campaign.  What 
had  occurred,  therefore,  in  the  story  to  his  friend, 
the  judge,  was  the  recollection  of  his  actual  experi- 
ence dissociated  from  his  actual  historical  knowledge. 
The  supposition  that  he  had  existed  before  becomes 
preposterous  in  the  light  of  such  a  simple  explana- 
tion. I  may  reproduce  two  of  my  own  experiences 
which  resemble  this  one  in  their  chief  characteristics. 
I  was  coming  up-town  on  the  Elevated  Railway, 
and  when  I  had  arrived  at  the  33d  Street  station,  I 
happened  to  look  across  Broadway,  and  saw  the 
sign  "  Microbe  Killer  "  over  a  store.  I  at  once  re- 
marked to  myself  that  I  had  seen  that  same  sign 
before,  but  that  it  had  been  moved  from  the  north 
side  of  34th  Street  to  this  place  on  Broadway  since 
I  saw  it  last.  Then  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  must 
be  mistaken,  because  there  were  no  stores  (fifteen 
years  ago)*  at  the  point  pictured  in  my  memory.  But 
my  feeling  that  I  had  so  seen  it  was  so  strong  that 
I  resolved  to  look  as  the  train  moved  onward.  As 
we  passed  34th  Street  I  observed  that  no  store  was 
at  the  point  recalled,  and  never  had  been.  Only  Dr. 
Taylor's  old  church  was  there,  and  no  microbe  store, 
as  I  afterward  learned,  had  ever  been  on  the  street. 
I  was  very  much  puzzled  to  account  for  the  phenom- 


SU    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

enon.  But  in  a  few  moments  I  recalled  that  it  was 
on  Arch  Street,  Philadelphia,  north  side  of  the  street, 
that  I  had  seen  the  store  and  sign  "  Microbe  Killer," 
and  that,  if  it  had  moved  around  on  Broad  Street 
there,  it  would  have  represented  an  identical  relation 
to  that  which  had  manifested  itself  in  my  pseudo- 
recollection  in  New  York  City.  The  subliminal  clue 
in  the  case  was  the  association  between  Broad  Street 
in  Philadelphia  and  Broadway  in  New  York.  The 
identical  element  was  the  space-relations  involved  and 
the  sign.  Until  the  whole  of  the  exact  scenes  was 
recalled,  I  had  no  means  of  discovering  that  the  phe- 
nomenon was  an  illusion  of  memory,  and  I  seemed  to 
have  had  an  experience  at  some  previous  time,  which 
the  recall  of  the  true  facts  demonstrated  was  a  mis- 
take. 

Another  incident  is  quite  as  interesting,  and  it 
resembles  those  experiences  about  which  people  tell 
us,  of  having  been  at  places  at  which  it  can  be  proved 
they  have  not  been.  I  was  in  the  train  on  the  way 
to  Kingston,  N.  Y.,  and  in  passing  over  the  railway 
viaduct,  which  spans  a  deep  gulch  before  entering 
the  town,  I  noticed  that  I  had  been  in  that  place 
before,  and  recalled  that  I  had  gone  up  this  vale 
in  a  train  and  under  the  viaduct.  I  remarked  to 
myself  that  I  should  recognize  the  railway  station 
when  I  reached  it.  But  when  I  arrived  at  the  station 
it  was  not  what  I  had  remembered,  and  I  was  per- 
plexed to  account  for  the  fact.  A  little  later  I  asked 
a  friend  if  a  railway  passed  up  the  vale  over  which 
I  had  come,  and  he  answered  in  the  affirmative.  I 
asked  him  then  to  name  some  places  through  which 


REINCARNATION  375 

it  went,  as  I  recalled  going  to  some  place  on  the 
road,  but  could  not  remember  the  name.  He  men- 
tioned several  places,  but  I  had  either  never  heard 
of  them  before  or  was  absolutely  certain  I  had  never 
been  there,  as  there  was  no  reason  for  my  going  to 
them.  I  knew  that  I  had  but  once  in  my  life  been 
in  that  locality.  An  hour  or  so  later,  after  having 
given  up  the  attempt  to  reduce  the  perplexity,  I  re- 
called the  fact  that  it  was  from  Catskill,  N.  Y., 
twenty-four  miles  further  north  of  Kingston,  that 
I  had  passed  up  a  narrow  vale  under  a  viaduct  or 
bridge,  and  that  the  station,  which  I  had  remembered 
as  in  Kingston,  had  been  seen  from  the  Hudson  Day 
Line  Steamer  on  my  way  to  Catskill.  Hence  it  was 
on  the  river-bank  that  I  had  pictured  it  to  myself 
in  my  memory  when  thinking  of  it  as  I  passed  over 
the  railway  viaduct  on  the  way  to  Kingston.  Here 
then  again  was  an  illusion  of  memory.  I  had,  in 
fact,  never  before  been  near  this  viaduct,  and  had 
never  gone  up  the  vale  over  which  it  passed.  The 
resemblance  was  sufficient  to  recall  a  past  experience, 
but  not  enough  of  that  past  was  recalled  to  establish 
its  identity  or  to  distinguish  it  from  the  present 
experience,  and  so  the  illusion  arose  from  that  dis- 
parity. 

These  are  very  common  experiences,  and  if  we 
understood  the  laws  of  reproduction  and  association 
properly,  as  they  have  been  discussed  in  a  previous 
chapter,  we  should  not  be  tempted  to  regard  the 
facts  as  evidence  of  any  remarkable  theory  of  the 
soul.  Almost  every  one  can  produce  similar  experi- 
ences, and  if  a  little  attention  is  given  to  them  they 


376   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

will  be  resolved  into  their  elements,  as  I  have  indicated 
in  the  cases  above.  They  are  illustrations  of  the  vari- 
ous laws  of  association  and  dissociation.  Usually  in 
our  experience  our  memory  recalls  enough  of  the  past 
to  identify  it  unmistakably,  even  though  some  inci- 
dents belong  to  other  times  and  places  than  those 
involved  in  the  recollection.  But  often  enough  the 
reintegration  or  recall  is  too  fragmentary  to  be  sure 
of  the  identity,  and  an  illusion  arises.  The  resem- 
blances between  the  past  and  the  present  may  be 
recalled,  and  the  differences,  which  would  lead  to  a 
correct  judgment  of  the  case,  become  dissociated  for 
the  time,  and  unless  they  are  finally  recalled  the 
illusion  is  not  discoverable.  There  is  that  perpetual 
disintegration  and  reintegration  of  our  memories 
which,  in  certain  cases  like  those  present,  result  in 
the  complete  confusion  of  them  unless  association 
can  finally  recall  the  dissociated  elements. 

Many  persons  report  that  they  have  a  clear  mem- 
ory of  having  existed  before  the  present  life.  I  have 
had  this  statement  made  to  me  by  persons  of  a  highly 
intelligent  character  and  who  do  not  for  a  moment 
regard  the  experience  as  evidence  of  a  past  existence. 
They  simply  report  that  it  has  been  a  frequent  expe- 
rience. I  have,  in  fact,  been  astonished  at  the  fre- 
quency of  the  reported  fact.  But  it  also  represents 
a  type  of  illusion  of  memory.  It  is,  too,  a  most  in- 
teresting type.  We  cannot  always  trace  it  definitely 
to  its  cause,  but  there  are  many  facts  in  human  ex- 
perience which  point  to  a  general  view  of  the  cause. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  note  that  all  persons 
undergo  an  important  change  of  personality  between 


REINCARNATION  377 

the  ages  of  four  and  ten.  Often  it  will  be  between 
four  and  seven.  Our  memories  seldom  extend  back 
to  a  period  preceding  four  years  of  age.  When 
they  do  they  usually  represent  some  isolated  or  strik- 
ing event  that  impressed  itself  on  our  minds. 
Usually,  however,  the  life  of  that  early  period  is 
forgotten.  Our  personal  memory,  and  more  particu- 
larly the  sense  of  personality  and  personal  identity, 
begins,  sometimes  very  suddenly,  at  that  period  when 
we  awaken  to  a  consciousness  of  it,  and  ever  after- 
ward the  stream  of  consciousness  and  memory  is  def- 
initely fixed  in  that  set  of  events.  Our  personality  is 
thus  our  remembered  series  of  experiences  or  the  con- 
sciousness of  our  identity  through  a  definite  or  in- 
definite period  whose  events  have  that  one  character- 
istic of  determining  that  self.  Now  if  at  any  time 
some  event  should  occur  which  recalled  enough  of  the 
experience  previous  to  that  which  represents  our 
present  consciousness  of  personality  to  make  us 
feel  that  it  belonged  to  a  time  previous,  and  yet  we 
could  not  recall  any  sense  of  personality  correspond- 
ing to  it,  we  might  be  excused  for  describing  the 
facts  as  representing  a  previous  existence.  It  would 
be  a  perfectly  natural  illusion.  The  resemblance  of 
such  a  feeling  to  those  which  I  have  described  in  the 
experiences  just  previously  narrated  is  clear.  We 
should  simply  be  recalling  a  part  of  a  past  which 
was  not  producible  in  sufficient  clearness  to  locate 
it  in  the  mental  states  lying  on  the  margin  of  our 
change  of  personality.  So  far  as  memory  is  con- 
cerned, our  first  stage  of  life  is  an  existence  previous 
to  the  present  one  which  self-consciousness  recalls. 


378    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

A  similar  phenomenon  might  occur  in  any  change  of 
personality,  but  it  is  likely  to  be  more  frequent  in 
that  change  which  represents  the  rise  to  self-con- 
sciousness, which  is  the  most  important  feature  of  our 
personality  and  personal  identity.  In  fact,  a  sense 
of  "  I,"  or  personal  identity,  will  not  occur  until  this 
self -consciousness  arises.  Any  fact  in  memory,  which 
does  not  affiliate  with  the  period  of  self -consciousness, 
will  appear  outside  of  it  as  an  unassimilated  experi- 
ence, and  if  it  carries  with  it  the  sense  of  time,  and 
possibly  nothing  else  but  the  sense  of  time,  antecedent 
to  that  represented  in  the  normal  and  reproducible 
personality,  it  will  naturally  carry  with  it  that  of  a 
previous  existence,  and  in  so  far  as  the  self-conscious 
personality  is  concerned  it  will  be  correct.  But  it 
will  not  serve  as  evidence  of  any  existence  prior  to 
birth.  It  simply  happens  that  the  memory  is  not 
complete  enough  to  recall  all  that  is  necessary  to 
locate  the  fact  rightly.  The  other  elements  which 
are  necessary  for  identifying  it  have  become  dis- 
sociated, and  the  judgment  of  its  meaning  is  exposed 
to  illusion  on  that  account. 

Such  facts  as  these  make  it  practically  impossible 
to  secure  evidence  of  such  a  doctrine  as  reincarnation. 
The  question  is  wholly  different  in  this  respect  from 
trying  to  prove  survival  by  communication  with  the 
discarnate.  In  reincarnation  we  can  rely  upon  only 
two  general  resources,  the  existence  of  identical  char- 
acteristics in  different  generations  and  the  recollec- 
tion of  this  past  and  previous  existence.  The  former 
has  no  credentials  that  can  be  respected  seriously,  and 
the   latter   cannot    escape    skeptical    difficulties    sug- 


REINCARNATION  379 

gested  by  illusions  of  memory.  But  communication 
with  the  discarnate  is  different.  Whether  it  be  a 
fact  or  not,  the  conception  of  the  problem  is  distinct 
from  that  of  proving  reincarnation.  Proof  of  a 
future  life  involves  an  appeal  to  memory  of  the  dis- 
carnate, but  the  trustworthiness  of  that  memory  is 
not  regarded.  What  we  assume  in  a  discarnate  spirit 
is  that,  if  it  exists,  it  can  tell  something  of  its  past 
and  earthly  existence.  We  do  not  accept  the  state- 
ment of  such  facts  on  their  own  face  value.  They 
must  have  two  characteristics  before  they  have  any 
scientific  importance.  (1)  They  must  be  supemor- 
mally  acquired.  (2)  They  must  be  verifiable  as  the 
past  experiences  of  deceased  persons.  Perhaps  a 
third  condition  might  be  added,  namely,  that  of  quan- 
tity of  incidents  illustrating  personal  identity  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  exclude  skepticism  of  all  sorts.  But 
the  first  two  characteristics  are  the  primary  ones.  We 
do  not  accept  the  statements  of  the  discarnate  per- 
son, even  after  we  have  excluded  fraud  and  other 
hypotheses  to  account  for  them.  But  we  have  to 
verify  them  as  supernormal  phenomena  independently 
of  the  source  through  which  they  are  revealed.  But 
with  reincarnation,  we  have  no  means  of  verifying, 
independently  of  the  reporter,  the  facts  supposed  to 
have  a  bearing  on  the  issue.  If  we  had  any  means  of 
establishing  supernormal  incidents  in  our  memory  of 
some  previous  past,  the  case  might  be  different.  But 
until  this  can  be  done  no  claim  whatever  can  be  made 
for  reincarnation  on  such  facts  as  are  usually  ad- 
duced to  support  it. 

A  further  difficulty  besides  illusions   of  memory 


380   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

can  be  suggested  in  regard  to  the  vision  or  percep- 
tion of  scenes  which  we  seem  to  have  seen  before,  but 
which  it  can  be  proved  that  we  have  not  normally 
seen  at  all.  We  might  contend  that  the  identity  in 
the  case  is  due  to  some  previous  clairvoyant  percep- 
tion. For  instance,  suppose  that  in  some  clairvoyant 
dream,  or  similar  subconscious  mood,  I  had  perceived 
any  specific  spot  and  its  surroundings,  I  might  after- 
wards have  the  sense  of  recollection  if  I  saw  either  the 
same  scene  or  some  one  like  it,  as  in  such  instances 
as  I  have  quoted.  I  could  therefore  not  infer  from 
this  sense  of  identity  that  it  involved  a  previous  exist- 
ence of  my  soul  and  its  perception  of  the  scene  con- 
cerned. I  do  not  indicate  in  this  mention  of  clair- 
voyance that  we  have  any  reason  to  accept  it  as  a 
fact.  I  only  know  that  there  are  reported  sponta- 
neous experiences  and  experimental  phenomena  that 
are  so  classified  and  that  are  regarded  as  indications 
of  clairvoyance  by  others.  They  may  or  may  not 
be  evidence  of  such  a  supernormal  process.  I  do  not 
care  whether  they  are  or  are  not.  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain, that,  if  true,  the  facts  in  most  cases  have  no 
evidence  whatever  of  being  the  result  of  reincarna- 
tion. Many  of  the  alleged  clairvoyant  phenomena, 
if  treated  as  supernormal  at  all,  instead  of  as  casual 
coincidences  or  illusions,  must  be  explained  as  some 
method  of  acquiring  present  knowledge,  and  do  not 
refer  to  the  past  in  any  way.  Hence  if  one  admitted 
clairvoyance,  it  would  stand  as  an  objection  to  any- 
thing in  the  way  of  identity  in  scenes  involving  the 
past  and  present,  at  least  during  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual who  has  the  experience.     This  is   to  say, 


REINCARNATION  381 

that  we  should  first  have  to  tolerate  the  hypothesis 
of  clairvoyance  before  we  could  even  think  of  rein- 
carnation, and  this  independently  of  the  proof  of 
clairvoyance.  I  do  not  think  that  clairvoyance  has 
yet  been  proved  to  such  an  extent  that  we  can  use 
it  preferably  to  illusions  of  memory  and  of  identity 
between  the  past  and  present.  These  simpler  hypoth- 
eses are  sufficient  to  discredit  the  claims  of  reincar- 
nation, and  the  suggestion  of  possible  clairvoyance 
is  to  show  the  extent  of  the  evidential  difficulties  that 
must  stand  in  the  way  of  proving  what  the  reincar- 
nationist  assumes. 

Thus  far  I  have  dealt  with  the  historical  view  of 
reincarnation.  But  there  is  a  conception  of  it  in 
modern  times,  which  is  a  mongrel  sort  of  thing  that 
can  never  state  itself  clearly  for  us.  It  is  a  general 
conception  intended  to  stand  for  a  future  life  and 
also  to  oppose  certain  well-defined  views  of  this  prob- 
lem. This  modern  theory  of  reincarnation  is  not  so 
much  based  on  facts,  as  it  is  a  speculative  possibility 
designed  to  answer  the  crude  objection  of  some  mate- 
rialists who  also  think  that,  if  the  "  soul "  exists 
hereafter,  it  must  have  a  bodily  organism.  Both  the 
materialist  and  his  opponents  of  the  reincarnationist 
type  are  the  victims  of  an  illusion  due  to  ignorance 
of  both  philosophy  and  science.  It  all  comes  from  the 
modern  identification  of  the  terms  "  soul "  and  "  con- 
sciousness," and  the  assumption  that  consciousness,  as 
a  function,  must  have  a  subject  for  its  basis.  The 
latter  assumption  is  true  enough,  but  the  former  was 
an  Incident  of  the  process  which  resulted  in  the  pri- 
macy  of  materialism  land   the  habit   of   using  the 


382    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

term  "  soul "  when  the  reasons  for  its  existence  had 
been  discarded.  Besides,  the  philosophy  of  Descartes 
came  in  to  introduce  perplexities  into  the  problem. 
The  original  and  proper  meaning  of  the  term 
*'  soul "  was  that  it  was  the  subject  of  consciousness, 
the  substance  of  which  consciousness  was  a  func- 
tional activity.  It  was  not  the  name  for  the  con- 
sciousness itself,  but  of  that  which  the  existence  of 
consciousness  implied,  if  it  was  not  a  function  of  the 
brain.  But  materialism  dispensed  with  the  necessity 
of  supposing  the  existence  of  any  other  subject  than 
the  brain.  Materialism  also  assumed  that  conscious- 
ness was  a  phenomenal  activity,  a  function,  a  mode  of 
something,  and  this  something  it  made  the  body.  Con- 
sciousness thus  required  an  embodiment  in  this  theory 
as  well  as  in  its  antagonistic  theory.  It  conceived  the 
body  as  a  necessity  for  its  occurrence,  and  if  that 
theory  of  the  relation  of  consciousness  to  the  organ- 
ism be  the  true  one,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the 
assumption  that  any  survival  of  personal  conscious- 
ness would  require  an  embodiment,  either  a  new  one 
or  the  resurrection  of  the  old  one.  Hence  the  doc- 
trine fixed  the  assumption  of  the  need  of  embodiment 
for  mental  activity.  Consequently  the  term  "  soul  " 
had  to  be  abandoned  in  scientific  and  philosophic 
usage  or  be  used  synonymously  with  consciousness. 
In  the  latter  sense  it  would  carry  with  it  the  impli- 
cation which  all  schools  of  thought  maintained  re- 
garding consciousness,  and  hence  survival  would  sug- 
gest a  body  of  some  kind  as  necessary  for  the  soul. 
Hence  the  temptation  to  think  and  speak  of  some 
form  of  "  reincarnation  "  when  they  wished  to  believe 


REINCARNATION  883 

in  a  future  life.  But  this  was  not  the  way  to  meet 
the  materiahst.  The  proper  mode  of  attack,  that 
usually  taken  by  philosophy  and  now  taken  by 
psychic  research  in  its  peculiar  way,  was  to  show 
that  consciousness  was  not  a  function  of  the  organism, 
and  leave  the  speculative  question  of  its  embodiment 
aside  for  the  time.  If  we  could  show  that  conscious- 
ness survived  death,  we  could  assume  one  of  three 
alternatives  as  possible,  namely,  (1)  that  it  might 
be  a  stream  of  functional  action  in  the  absolute; 
(2)  that  it  might  be  a  phenomenal  action  of  a  Leib- 
nitzian  monad,  or  point  of  force;  and  (3)  that  it 
might  be  a  function  of  a  "  spiritual "  body,  an  ethe- 
real substance  or  organism,  after  the  Epicurean  con- 
ception. No  one  of  these  would  require  the  idea  of 
reincarnation  or  of  incarnation  of  any  kind  as  a 
necessity  understood  in  material  science.  Conse- 
quently the  modem  doctrine  of  reincarnation,  if  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  ancient  and  Oriental  conception 
at  all,  is  synonymous  with  ideas  which  it  is  supposed 
to  antagonize  and  has  no  importance  in  the  discus- 
sion of  reincarnation  historically  understood.  Clear 
thinking  and  a  knowledge  of  philosophical  doctrine 
would  prevent  using  the  term  at  all  unless  we  in- 
tended to  revive  the  Platonic  and  Oriental  ideas. 
But  these  have  no  interest  for  any  who  insist  that 
a  future  life,  if  it  is  to  be  rationally  conceived, 
must  involve  the  survival  of  personal  identity. 
Any  other  conception  is  a  social  fad  which  serves 
as  an  illusion  masked  under  the  form  of  philosophic 
language.  It  has  the  associations  of  a  future  life 
without  the  reality,  and  one  can  appear  intelligent 


384    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

without  saying  that  he  is  either  a  materialist  or 
a  spiritualist.  Any  use  of  the  term  to  denote  sur- 
vival of  personal  consciousness  in  another  subject 
than  the  brain  might  as  well  call  itself  by  the  his- 
torical name  and  not  wince  at  an  unfortunate  term 
because  it  does  not  like  materialism  and  feels  that 
spiritualism  or  spiritism  is  not  respectable.  Clear 
thinking  will  place  us  between  these  two  alterna- 
tives and  prevent  our  reinstating  reincarnation 
ideas  unless  we  mean  frankly  to  adopt  the  ancient 
doctrine,  which  is  practically  convertible  with  ma- 
terialism, but  more  unintelligible. 

The  reincarnation  doctrine  is  not  the  most  ra- 
tional view  that  we  can  take  of  the  cosmic  order 
as  an  ideal  one.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  it  is  not  true. 
For  all  that  I  care  in  the  present  discussion  it  may 
be  true.  I  am  only  contending  that,  if  true,  it 
does  not  represent  a  rational  order  of  things.  Our 
moral  standards  place  personality  above  an  imper- 
sonal order  and  sequence.  We  base  our  ethics  on 
personality  as  the  superior  ideal,  and  this  personality 
involves  continuity  of  consciousness  and  memory.  If 
this  continuity  is  interrupted,  we  cannot  exact  the 
same  kind  of  responsibility  as  we  demand  in  our  in- 
dividual and  social  ethics.  No  theory  of  reward 
and  punishment  whatever  can  be  rationally  applied 
to  another  existence  for  our  conduct  here.  We  re- 
quire continuity  of  personality  between  the  two 
worlds  to  assume  or  conceive  a  rational  connection 
of  action  and  consequence  between  them.  The  tra- 
ditional reincarnation  theory  eliminates  that  connec- 
tion, and  hence  the  Platonic  system  of  rewards  and 


REINCARNATION  386 

punishments  was  an  inconsistency  in  the  doctrine. 
The  only  rational  order  of  responsibility  is  one  in 
which  the  continuity  of  consciousness  is  involved,  if 
that  responsibility  extends  beyond  the  present  social 
system.  If  then  we  limit  moral  ideals  to  our  present 
earthly  condition,  we  may  well  render  a  reincarnation 
doctrine  consistent  on  this  point,  but  we  shall  not 
make  it  any  the  more  rational  as  an  ideal  system.  If 
personal  identity  in  the  present  system  be  the  rational 
condition  of  things,  and  if  we  must  necessarily  think 
of  personality  as  the  highest  conception  that  we  can 
form  of  an  end  to  attain,  we  must  naturally  assume 
that  a  rational  order  would  favor  that  development 
which  did  not  cut  off  the  opportunities  of  progress 
for  personality  at  the  point  of  death.  Reincarna- 
tion ideas,  with  their  elimination  of  memory  from 
the  next  and  succeeding  states,  would  only  leave 
us  where  materialism  leaves  us,  in  so  far  as  our 
ideals  are  concerned,  and  whatever  we  might  say 
of  its  truth,  we  would  have  to  reject  it  as  irra- 
tional. 

It  is  the  uncritical  poetic  view  that  charms  and 
deludes  most  people  in  this  question.  The  idea  of 
reincarnation  offers  a  sensible  or  sensuous  picture 
for  the  fancy  in  talking  of  a  future  life.  I  have 
known  many  to  quote  as  if  it  were  a  philosophic  ar- 
gument the  beautiful  lines  of  Wordsworth. 

«  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting  : 
The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  Star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  Cometh  from  afar.** 


386    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

I  would  not  refuse  a  fascination  to  such  language, 
but  I  would  not  be  tempted  to  transfigure  it  as  a 
philosophy.  I  am  willing  to  indulge  a  literary  im- 
agination and  a  poetic  reverie  without  insisting  upon 
its  scientific  basis.  That  might  have  been  apparent 
in  the  very  next  lines,  by  which  Wordsworth  gives 
another  color  to  his  sentiment. 

"  Not  in  entire  forgetf ulness 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God  who  is  our  home." 

Pantheism  is  not  inconsistent  with  surviving  per- 
sonality any  more  than  it  is  inconsistent  with  present 
personality,  and  we  have  only  to  remember  the 
poet's  sympathies  to  see  that  it  would  be  converting 
the  effects  of  reverie  into  scientific  dogma  to  treat 
his  lines  as  any  intellectual  support  for  preexistence. 
That  doctrine  must  run  the  gauntlet  we  have  assigned 
it.  Illusions  of  memory  and  of  philosophic  specula- 
tion founded  on  a  misunderstanding  of  the  problem 
are  the  standing  difficulty  in  the  way  of  either  its 
truth  or  its  rationality. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS 

Previous  discussions  have  brought  us  to  the 
boundaries  of  transcendental  things  and  kept  us 
from  stepping  beyond  the  limits  which  our  knowl- 
edge imposes  upon  the  temptations  of  the  imagina- 
tion. We  have  now  to  summarize  the  influences 
which  make  for  cautiousness  in  our  thinking  and 
which,  while  they  may  restrain  our  fancies,  do  not 
wholly  nullify  the  functions  of  the  mind  in  its  curi- 
osity about  what  undoubtedly  lies  beyond  the  senses. 
Whether  it  can  ever  penetrate  the  veil  that  hides 
what  it  seeks  so  impatiently  and  so  passionately  is 
not  the  problem  now.  It  may  or  may  not  have 
power  to  make  a  successful  voyage  on  Kant's  foggy 
ocean,  with  many  a  sand-bank  or  shoal  to  be  avoided, 
but  no  amount  of  self-satisfied  wisdom,  or  intellec- 
tual pride,  or  contempt  for  the  common  mind,  as 
in  the  rejection  of  stories  about  meteors  and  the 
phenomena  of  mesmerism,  is  going  to  restrain  the 
ambition  of  bolder  adventurers  to  embark  upon 
discoveries  against  danger  and  adversity  in  a  limit- 
less universe  of  reality,  seen  and  unseen.  The  duty 
of  the  sane  and  intelligent  man  is  to  see  that  compass 
and  rudder  are  supplied  to  the  voyager  and  that  the 

387 


388    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

discoverer  can  always  have  a  way  of  return  to  the 
land  from  which  he  sailed.  If  we  could  draw  a 
hard  and  fast  line  between  the  known  and  the  un- 
known there  would  be  no  temptations  to  transgress 
the  limits  which  we  sometimes  imagine  in  our  way. 
But  even  in  physical  science  the  old  boundaries  of 
the  material  world  were  long  since  abandoned,  until 
apparently  in  the  present  age  all  the  dogmatic  met- 
aphysics are  in  physical  science,  where  its  devotees 
are  floundering  about  in  a  sea  of  atoms,  ether,  ions 
and  electrons.  X-rays,  N-rays,  and  the  transmuta- 
tion of  the  elements,  having  abandoned  every  one  of 
the  criteria  by  which  they  had  corrected  the  aberra- 
tions of  ancient  philosophy.  If  science  thus  indulges 
its  own  speculative  vision  with  little  restraint,  it 
must  either  extend  that  liberty  to  the  common  mind 
or  assume  the  duty  of  directing  it  toward  the  proper 
end.  It  is  not  the  instinct  that  is  wrong,  but  the 
undirected  action  of  its  energies,  and  hence  it  is  the 
function  of  the  wise  to  be  at  the  helm. 

An  apology,  however,  for  an  inquiring  disposition 
is  not  a  justification  of  its  conduct.  It  is  only  a 
recognition  of  its  rights,  while  the  admitted  dangers 
to  which  an  untrained  intellect  is  exposed  are  an 
equal  excuse  for  caution,  and  hence  the  duty  of  hu- 
mility and  modesty  is  as  much  on  the  side  of  inex- 
perienced curiosity  as  are  humanity  and  sympathy 
upon  the  side  of  the  wise.  We  cannot  break  away 
from  normal  experience  and  ignore  its  guidance  with 
impunity.  We  have  ever  to  return  to  it  for  our 
bearings,  partly  because  it  is  in  this  that  our  daily 
lives  have  to  be  passed,  and  partly  because  anything 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       389 

that  transcends  it  cannot  be  utilized  unless  it  has 
some  connection  with  the  present. 

These  general  observations  prepare  us  for  recog- 
nizing the  ineradicable  instinct  of  man  to  peer  into 
the  processes  of  nature  and  the  forces  that  are  con- 
cealed from  his  ordinary  sensible  representation. 
That  he  is  never  content  with  what  he  sees  and  feels 
is  apparent  in  much  more  than  his  religion.  All 
physical  science  is  as  much  an  endeavor  to  penetrate 
the  veil  of  sensory  impressions  as  is  the  flight  of 
faith  or  fancy.  The  Greek  mind  would  not  stop, 
any  more  than  the  savage,  with  the  visible  universe, 
and  it  set  up  a  vast  cosmos  of  elements  and  sub- 
stance with  which  it  could  play  tricks  of  explana- 
tion quite  as  freely  as  theistic  speculations.  It  was 
not  Christianity  that  first  initiated  the  fascina- 
tions of  metaphysics.  Greek  materialism  was  quite 
as  mystical  as  later  religion,  only  its  mysticism  was 
an  a  priori  play  with  atoms.  Nothing  can  surpass 
the  weird  and  fantastic  flight  of  Plato's  imagination. 
His  avowed  contempt  for  sense-experience  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  nature  of  things,  though  guided 
in  his  own  reflections  by  the  more  sober  traditions  of 
philosophy,  only  landed  his  followers  in  the  maudlin 
speculations  of  Neo-platonism,  which  might  not  have 
been  so  bad  had  they  been  tempered  by  the  scientific 
spirit.  It  was  the  materialists  that  preserved  faith 
in  sense-perception  while  they  indulged  in  meta- 
physics, and  whether  they  were  consistent  or  not, 
they  were  sufficiently  intelligible  to  obtain  the  direc- 
tion  of   human   thought.      But   all   schools    looked 


390    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

toward    the    supersensible    for    the    solution    of    all 
enigmas. 

All  the  interests  in  the  supersensible  were  finally 
concentrated  in  the  immortahty  of  the  soul.  The 
organization  of  speculative  metaphysics  was  made 
primarily  for  the  defence  of  this  beHef,  and  the  be- 
lief itself  had  in  its  support  all  the  natural  passions 
of  human  nature.  The  Greeks,  accepting  the  relig- 
ious conceptions  of  their  time  in  regard  to  the  na- 
ture of  another  life,  probably  derived  from  phe- 
nomena like  those  which  are  the  subject  of  psychic 
research,  thought  the  life  after  death  was  not  worth 
living  and  that  their  paradise  was  to  be  obtained  in 
the  world  of  sense.  Christianity  came  and  idealized 
the  transcendental  world,  neglecting  after  its  rise 
the  evidential  aspect  of  its  belief,  and  contemned 
the  sensory  world.  Its  passions  were  thus  directed 
wholly  toward  the  future  and  ideal  world.  It  soon 
abandoned  science  and  the  metaphysics  of  the  ma- 
terialists, and  began  a  long  revelry  in  a  spiritual 
metaphysics  that  intensified  a  passion  already  strong 
enough.  It  educated  the  human  race  in  an  interest 
which  it  will  not  easily  sacrifice,  and  when  material- 
ism revived  its  claims  to  challenge  the  belief  in  a 
future  life,  which  had  for  so  many  centuries  been 
the  central  feature  of  thought  and  hope,  it  was  nat- 
ural that  a  life  and  death  struggle  should  be  pre- 
cipitated between  the  two  rival  speculations.  That 
is  the  situation  to-day,  and  the  issue  so  permeates  all 
other  philosophical  interests  that  are  not  immedi- 
ately practical  that  any  evasion  of  it  only  removes 
their  importance   from   recognition.     This   subordi- 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       391 

nation  of  all  metaphysical  speculations  to  the  one 
interest  of  human  personality  and  its  survival  may 
be  deplored,  and  it  may  have  unfortunate  conse- 
quences, but  if  this  be  the  fact,  we  have  the  passionate 
hostility  of  materialism  and  its  ramifications  to  thank 
or  reproach  for  it.  The  interest  in  a  spiritual  theory 
of  life  may  have  its  abuses,  but  these  do  not  make 
materialistic  passions  any  better.  The  extremes  into 
which  the  human  mind  runs  are  as  bad  in  one  direc- 
tion as  the  other,  and  it  is  only  natural,  when  the 
finer  souls  see  the  degeneracy  of  both,  that  they 
should  seek  some  middle  way  out  of  evil  tendencies. 
But  such  a  course  never  commends  itself  to  those 
who  like  issues  formulated  in  clear  opposition  to  each 
other.  Hence  the  contest  between  a  materialistic  and 
a  spiritualistic  view  of  the  world  always  draws  a 
clear  line  between  the  known  and  the  unknown,  the 
former  being  limited  to  the  world  of  sense,  and  the 
latter  being  extended  to  all  that  is  beyond. 

This  boundary,  however,  never  succeeds  in  keep- 
ing itself  at  any  one  fixed  point.  It  is  forever  mov- 
ing from  its  arbitrary  limits  into  the  territory  of 
a  spiritual  view,  and  materialism  has  lost  the  well- 
defined  limits  of  its  earlier  psychology  and  specula- 
tions, until  one  does  not  know  the  difference  between 
its  present  claims  and  the  domain  of  its  former  an- 
tagonist. The  transcendental  metaphysics  of  modern 
physical  science  are  a  proof  of  this  contention,  and 
it  is  but  a  light  step  from  its  ethereal  background 
of  nature  into  the  realm  of  universal  personality. 
And  it  makes  no  difference  whether'  the  old  antith- 
esis  between   matter   and   spirit   is   maintained   any 


392    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

longer  or  not,  because  physical  science  has  so  refined 
the  supersensible  world  of  its  speculations  that  the 
distinction  is  lost  in  the  clouds.  It  was  made  only 
in  deference  to  the  need  of  eradicating  the  sophisms 
of  the  materialist,  though  it  may  have  given  rise  to 
other  sophisms  as  bad.  But  whether  necessary  or 
not,  the  distinction  has  lost  both  its  metaphysical  and 
its  ethical  importance,  and  there  is  no  excuse  but  a 
difference  in  human  interests  for  the  passionate  an- 
tagonism between  the  two  schools  of  thought.  The 
supersensible  is  equally  the  basis  of  their  views  of 
the  cosmos ;  with  the  tendency  of  physical  science  to 
speculate  more  passionately  on  the  supersensible  than 
religion  or  ethics,  which  have  finally  come  to  recog- 
nize the  importance  of  the  practical  and  present  in 
their  activities.  The  resource  of  religion  in  the  su- 
persensible is  faith;  that  of  science  is  experiment. 
Both,  however,  show  the  same  interest  in  the  transcen- 
dental. It  is  not  as  it  once  was  the  question  whether 
knowledge  of  reality  was  limited  to  sensation  or  mere 
sensory  experience,  but  whether  the  transcendental 
can  be  assumed  without  experience  of  any  kind.  The 
opposition  is  not  between  what  sense  gives  and  what 
intellect  may  give,  but  between  what  any  mental 
process  attests  and  what  is  held  without  evidence  of 
any  kind. 

In  some  form  or  other,  therefore,  we  find  mankind 
interested  deeply  in  what  lies  beyond  immediate 
knowledge,  and  in  most  conditions  nothing  excites 
its  interest  so  much  as  the  question  whether  we  shall 
live  again  when  the  bodily  life  terminates.  This  issue 
is  the  one  toward  which  all  other  interests  in  the 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       393 

supersensible  move,  whether  we  try  to  prevent  it  or 
not.  But  leaving  this  primary  moral  interest  out  of 
account  for  the  present,  it  suffices  to  keep  in  mind 
the  consuming  passion  for  something  beyond  our 
ordinary  experience.  The  most  of  us  are  not  satis- 
fied with  what  lies  before  our  natural  vision.  We 
seek  the  ever-receding  and  tantalizing  mysteries  of 
the  unknown.  We  are  always  at  the  tasks  of  Sisy- 
phus and  Ixion.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  con- 
ception of  human  interest,  but  they  will  be  noticed 
in  their  place.  The  majority  of  mankind  feel  little 
satisfaction  with  the  world  of  the  present  moment, 
and  ever  look  toward  what  lies  beyond.  The  passion 
gives  rise  to  all  sorts  of  illusions,  and  it  requires  all 
the  tenacity  of  skepticism  to  restrain  this  natural 
instinct,  which  is  never  more  exposed  to  vagaries 
and  irrational  conceptions  than  when  it  is  in  pursuit 
of  a  future  life.  The  correction  of  its  follies  and 
errors  begins  in  the  cautiousness  which  we  have  to 
maintain  even  in  the  conclusions  from  our  normal 
experience.  The  phenomena  that  even  suggest  such 
a  thing  as  a  soul  and  its  survival  are  so  rare  or 
sporadic  that  reservations  are  more  obligatory  here 
than  in  the  more  common  of  our  experiences.  But 
if  illusion  and  hallucination  are  so  frequent  in  nor- 
mal experience,  the  duty  of  prudence  and  suspense  of 
judgment  are  all  the  more  imperative  when  that  ex- 
perience is  abnormal  or  supernormal.  The  reason 
for  this  fact  will  be  apparent  in  the  examination 
briefly  again  of  the  limitations  of  knowledge  in  sen- 
sory phenomena. 

The  naive  mind  —  and  this  is  often  the  concep- 


394    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

tion  or  the  implication  of  even  scientific  men  who 
ought  to  know  better  —  thinks  its  sensations  repre- 
sent things  as  they  are.  But  we  soon  learn  that  our 
sensations  may  not  even  be  simulacra  of  reality.  We 
soon,  learn  that  the  nature  of  things  is  not  expressed 
by  the  way  the  organism  is  affected  and  that  our 
sensations  are  subjective  affairs,  things  of  the  mind's 
own  making  on  the  occasion  of  external  stimuli  or 
impressions  on  the  sensorium.  Sense-perception  thus 
appears  as  non-representative  of  the  external  reality 
which  is  not  expressible  in  terms  of  sensory  experi- 
ence. The  naive  mind  supposes  that  there  is  nothing 
more  than  what  it  sees.  The  sensible  world  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  only  world  of  knowledge.  But  the 
most  superficial  examination  of  sensations  reveals  the 
fact  that  sensations  are  subjective  and  that  the  world 
of  their  causes  is  not  like  them  in  kind,  but  must  be 
conceived  as  more  or  less  in  antithesis  to  them.  That 
is,  they  exist  with  a  difference  between  them  that 
necessitates  regarding  one  of  them  as  supersensible 
and  non-representative  in  experience  and  the  other 
as  a  mode  of  mental  reaction  distinct  in  kind  from 
the  thing  which  it  implies  externally.  Consequently, 
right  in  noi*mal  experience  we  find  the  evidence  of 
the  supersensible.  This  conclusion  would  not  appear 
to  the  naive  mind.  It  requires  nothing  beyond  the 
sensible  world,  whether  with  the  skeptic  this  be  sen- 
sations alone  (Idealism)  or  with  the  untutored  sub- 
ject it  be  the  identity  of  sense  and  reality  (Realism). 
The  skeptic,  however,  must  choose  between  Solipsism, 
that  is,  the  entire  limitation  of  knowledge  to  one's 
mental  states,  and  the  admission  of  something  super- 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       395 

sensible  whether  definable  in  terms  of  experience  or 
not.  The  naive  mind  is  the  only  one  that  has  no  need 
for  anything  beyond  what  its  senses  reveal. 

A  critical  examination  of  normal  sense-perception 
or  sensory  experience  thus  shows  the  existence  of  a 
supersensible  world,  and  owing  to  the  fact  that  it 
has  to  be  conceived  more  or  less  in  negation  of  what 
the  naive  mind  at  first  takes  it  to  be,  we  have  con- 
siderable freedom  in  our  interpretation  of  its  nature, 
if  that  expression  can  be  permitted.  But  we  are 
not  entitled  to  conceive  or  name  it  as  we  please.  We 
have  been  accustomed  to  call  it  "  matter,"  and  though 
the  new  point  of  view,  enforced  by  the  idea  that  it 
is  really  supersensible,  might  seem  to  suggest  the 
right  to  call  it  immaterial,  and  many  have  called  it 
"  spirit,"  yet  this  is  not  a  legitimate  conclusion.  All 
that  we  are  entitled  to  do  in  thus  ascertaining  that 
it  is  in  some  way  opposed  to  the  naive  conception  is 
to  say  that  it  is  not  like  our  sensations;  that  it  is 
a  non-sensible  or  supersensible  reality,  whose  exist- 
ence we  ascertain  by  an  instinctive  application  of 
the  principle  of  causality.  We  may  not  at  first  even 
be  qualified  to  call  it  matter,  as  that  conception  might 
carry  with  it  the  old  implication  of  the  naive  view, 
and  the  facts  show  that  it  is  not  this.  Much  less 
are  we  entitled  to  call  it  "  spirit,"  because  this  im- 
plies consciousness,  and  as  sensation  is  a  form  of  con- 
sciousness the  antithesis  to  this,  involved  in  the  dis- 
tinction between  reality  and  sensation,  between 
cause  and  effect,  excludes  "  spirit "  unless  we  can 
obtain  other  evidence  of  its  "  nature."  In  the  first 
stage  of  knowledge  it  will  be  neither  "  matter  "  in 


396   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  sensational  sense  nor  "  spirit "  in  its  true  sense. 
If  we  call  it  "  matter "  in  the  supersensible  import 
of  the  term,  it  will  be  for  the  reason  that  it  denotes 
the  idea  of  causality  exclusive  either  of  the  fact  or 
of  the  evidence  of  "  spiritual "  action.  If  the  uni- 
formity of  the  relation  between  this  reality  or  cause 
and  the  sensation  be  unlike  that  of  conscious  agency, 
we  may  call  it  "  matter  "  in  the  sense  that  it  excludes 
intelligence  from  its  conception,  and  that  is  precisely 
the  scientific  and  philosophic  conception  of  matter, 
and  it  is  the  result  of  the  most  critical  investigation 
of  the  normal  phenomena  of  experience. 

Two  important  truths  are  involved  in  this  view 
of  normal  experience.  (1)  The  existence  of  a  super- 
sensible world  of  reality  evinced  by  normal  phenom- 
ena and  not  requiring  the  evidence  of  either  the  ab- 
normal or  the  supernormal  to  prove  it.  (2)  The 
existence  of  certain  limitations  in  the  judgment  of 
the  "  nature  "  of  this  reality,  namely,  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  it.  The  older  naive  view  would  describe  it 
in  terms  of  sensations:  the  newer  view  must  describe 
it,  if  description  be  the  name  of  the  act,  in  terms  of 
the  umformity  of  coexistence  and  sequence,  that  is, 
in  terms  of  its  mere  law  of  action,  until  we  learn  more 
about  it,  if  that  be  possible.  But  we  have  in  this 
situation  a  most  important  consideration  enforced 
by  the  limitations  indicated.  The  naive  and  un- 
trained mind  is  not  qualified  to  deal  with  the  prob- 
lem, even  of  normal  experience.  It  has  to  accept 
the  results  of  science  and  philosophy,  that  is,  the 
educated  and  expert  mind.  The  interpretation  of 
even  normal  experience  is  not  on  the  surface.     It 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       397 

involves  scientific  and  deep  reflection,  and  especially 
an  acquaintance  with  the  laws  of  the  human  mind, 
and  any  neglect  of  these  conditions  only  leads  to 
illusion  regarding  the  whole  problem  of  reality.  We 
may  satisfy  ourselves  that  there  is  something  beyond 
the  senses,  but  it  will  not  be  so  easy  to  determine 
what  it  is,  what  its  nature  is.  This  must  be  the  work 
of  the  qualified  student,  and  whether  the  reality 
shall  be  termed  "  matter  "  or  "  spirit "  will  depend 
upon  a  most  profound  investigation  not  within  the 
capacities  of  the  ordinary  mind.  In  this,  as  in  all 
scientific  and  philosophic  problems,  the  work  should 
be  left  to  the  men  whose  business  it  is  to  investigate 
them.  If  the  idea  of  "  spirit "  had  not  been  intro- 
duced into  human  thought,  the  term  "  matter  "  would 
suffice  to  name  this  cause  of  sensation  and  other  phe- 
nomena. It  would  be  endowed  with  all  the  attributes 
or  qualities  of  action  that  we  now  attribute  to  both 
"  matter  "  and  "  mind."  It  would  be  "  dead  "  and 
unintelligent  in  certain  forms  and  conditions,  and 
active  and  conscious  in  others.  This  was,  in  fact, 
the  Greek  conception  in  all  its  schools.  Matter  and 
mind  w^ere  the  same  in  kind,  in  so  far  as  they  were 
substances,  as  we  have  seen  above.  Only  when  Chris- 
tianity came  was  the  distinction  made  radical,  and  the 
one  made  to  exclude  the  other.  Matter  stood  for 
inert  and  unconscious  substance,  mind  for  conscious 
and  self-active  substance.  The  proof  of  the  existence 
of  mind  is  more  difficult  than  that  of  matter.  The 
reason  for  this  will  be  apparent  in  the  following. 

The  simplest  experience  we  have  of  causal  action 
is  that  of  the  external  world  on  the  senses.     It  is 


398    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

the  first  place  in  which  we  become  acquainted  with 
the  fact.  It  is  the  most  frequent  form  in  which  our 
experience  occurs.  All  that  we  require  for  defining 
it,  at  least  at  first,  is  the  uniformity  of  coexistence 
and  sequence  between  sensations  and  a  something 
giving  rise  to  them.  We  do  not  discover  any  traces 
of  intelligence  in  its  action  on  sense,  and  when  intelli- 
gence seems  to  be  associated  with  material  action  we 
find  it  an  additional  factor  in  the  totality  of  our  ex- 
perience. It  involves  complexity  where  simple  mate- 
rial causality  is  simple.  Hence  the  existence  of 
matter  seems  to  be  the  nearest  and  simplest  convic- 
tion that  we  can  adopt  to  explain  phenomena  showing 
no  indications  of  accompanying  intelligence,  and  the 
conception  stands  for  the  exclusion  of  it. 

When  it  comes  to  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
mind  as  something  other  than  a  bodily  function,  the 
problem  is  a  very  difficult  one.  We  are  directly 
aware  of  our  sensations  and  states  of  consciousness. 
We  are  absolutely  assured  of  these  beyond  the  as- 
saults of  skepticism.  But  the  certitude  that  we  are 
conscious  does  not  carry  with  it  the  same  certitude 
that  our  minds  are  substances  other  than  the  brain. 
We  assume  or  know  that  we  have  bodies,  material 
organisms,  with  which  these  mental  states  are  asso- 
ciated, and  we  have  no  knowledge  of  ourselves  apart 
from  these  bodies,  so  that  the  evidence  seems  to  favor 
the  treatment  of  these  states  as  function  of  the  bodily 
organism.  Hence  we  have  no  direct  evidence  nor- 
mally of  anything  but  the  association  of  conscious- 
ness with  a  material  body,  and  assuming  that  matter 
can  produce  sensation  in  us  and  that  it  is  the  centre 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       399 

of  such  functions  as  digestion,  circulation,  and  secre- 
tion, we  can  very  well  imagine  that  consciousness  is 
also  a  function  of  the  same  organism.  If  it  be  this 
we  do  not  need  normally  to  suppose  that  mind  is  a 
name  for  a  substance  other  than  the  brain  at  all. 
It  is  only  a  synonym  for  mental  states  or  inner  phe- 
nomena, and  these  are  not  independent  of  matter, 
in  so  far  as  normal  experience  conceives  it.  The 
direct  knowledge  of  mind  or  consciousness  does  not 
exclude  the  possibility  that  it  is  caused  by  matter 
alone  and  so  dissolved  with  the  bodily  organism. 

But  how  is  it  with  the  existence  of  other  minds 
than  our  own-f*  If  immediate  consciousness  does  not 
prove  the  independent  existence  of  mind-substance 
and  if  the  law  of  causality  does  not  require  us  to  go 
beyond  matter  or  material  organism  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  in  the  subject,  may  not 
the  existence  of  other  minds  than  our  own  lead  to  a 
different  conclusion.?  The  answer  to  this  question 
is  not  so  simple. 

In  the  first  place  we  must  remember  that  we  have 
no  direct  or  immediate  knowledge  of  any  minds  or 
states  of  consciousness  but  our  own.  I  do  not  know 
directly  that  my  friend  or  neighbor  is  conscious.  I 
know  more  or  less  directly  that  his  body  is  present, 
but  I  have  to  infer  from  his  actions  whether  he  is 
conscious  or  unconscious.  As  I  know  that  I  myself 
am  conscious  and  that  my  actions  are  related  in  a 
certain  way  to  my  mental  states,  I  may  safely  infer 
from  like  actions  or  movements  in  my  friend  or  neigh- 
bor that  he  is  conscious.  But  I  never  know  it  di- 
rectly.    It  is  only  the  difference  between  the  uni- 


400    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

formitj  of  actions  in  inert  matter  and  the  adjusted 
actions  in  my  friend  or  neighbor  that  suggests  intelli- 
gence in  the  latter.  The  mind  or  substance  supposed 
to  be  the  basis  of  the  intelligence  is  neither  visible 
nor  necessarily  inferable  from  the  consciousness. 
From  my  own  experience  again  I  infer  that  the  asso- 
ciation of  this  inferred  consciousness  is  with  the  bod- 
ily organism,  which  I  observe  may  imply  nothing 
more  than  that  the  organism  is  its  cause  or  subject, 
and  I  may  not  require  to  suppose  that  consciousness 
requires  a  subject  or  substance  other  than  the  brain 
to  account  for  it. 

The  consequence  of  this  position  is  that  normal  ex- 
perience does  not  attest  with  any  certitude  of  a  scien- 
tific kind  that  mind  is  anything  other  than  a  function 
of  the  body.  Philosophy  generally  relies  upon  the 
difference  between  mental  and  physical  phenomena, 
that  is,  their  real  or  alleged  difference  of  kind,  to  sup- 
port the  doctrine  that  the  mind  is  capable  of  being 
independent  of  bodily  functions.  But  while  I  concede 
this  difference  in  nature  between  mental  and  physical 
facts,  I  do  not  admit  that  the  evidence  is  anything 
like  scientific  proof,  and  I  reserve  the  right  to  demand 
evidence  that  they  are  as  distinct  in  kind  as  they 
superficially  seem  to  be.  But  whether  radically  dis- 
tinguishable or  not,  there  is  no  scientific  or  philo- 
sophic proof  of  the  independent  reality  of  mind  but 
the  fact  of  its  isolation  and  the  discovery  of  its  iden- 
tity, whatever  the  method  be  for  deciding  this. 

Let  me  summarize  the  result  again.  We  have 
found  that  normal  experience,  when  properly  inter- 
rogated in  the  light  of  the  principle  of  causality, 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       401 

assures  us  of  the  existence  of  the  supersensible.  A 
world  beyond  the  senses  is  a  settled  fact,  a  fact  certi- 
fied by  scientific  investigation  and  without  appeal 
to  exceptional  phenomena.  This  conclusion  is  re- 
inforced by  the  phenomena  of  X-rays,  wireless  teleg- 
raphy, and  radio-active  substances.  We  do  not 
require  traditional  beliefs  or  dogmas  to  assure  us 
of  these.  The  most  general  and  common  experiences 
of  every  man,  when  understood,  point  certainly  to 
realities  which  the  senses,  though  they  are  the  medium 
for  the  revelation  of  their  existence,  do  not  represent 
as  they  are.  Consequently,  the  very  conditions  which 
determine  a  transcendental  or  supersensible  world 
establish  reservations  in  our  judgment  of  what  this 
world  is  like.  The  same  facts  which  prove  its  exist- 
ence teach  us  to  reserve  our  opinions  about  its 
nature.  Belief  and  skepticism  are  thus  inevitably 
associated,  the  one  supplying  a  basis  for  our  imme- 
diate behavior  and  the  other  a  restraint  against  hasty 
assumptions  about  the  meaning  of  things.  And  this 
latter  field  of  the  unknown  —  the  unknown,  however, 
in  terms  of  what  reality  is,  not  the  fact  —  is  the 
wider  one,  and  off'ers  a  large  possible  range  of  in- 
quiry. But  if  normal  experience  shows  how  difficult 
it  is  to  interpret  the  facts,  in  spite  of  their  frequency, 
how  much  more  is  the  duty  to  maintain  reservations 
and  caution  in  regard  to  phenomena  that  are  less 
common.  Here  we  find  in  our  commonest  life  phe- 
nomena that  admonish  prudence  in  regard  to  our 
belief  about  their  meaning,  and  that  require  the 
utmost  knowledge  of  the  trained  mind  to  reduce  to 
intelligible  order.    Yet  we  find  untrained  minds  rush- 


402    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

ing  in  where  the  wise  fear  to  tread.  The  revelation 
of  nature  seems  to  stop  short  with  the  fact  of  its 
external  existence  and  to  leave  every  conclusion  about 
its  nature  and  meaning  to  the  most  patient  toil  of 
expert  men.  Nature  keeps  her  secrets  except  in 
response  to  an  inquisition  that  only  a  few  of  the 
best  trained  minds  can  institute,  and  the  duty  of 
caution  and  skepticism  is  quite  as  imperative  as  faith 
or  hope. 

This  view  of  the  matter  is  all  the  more  evident 
when  we  notice  the  meaning  of  illusions  and  halluci- 
nations. Here  we  have  phenomena  that  impose  de- 
cided limitations  on  our  judgments  about  even  the 
very  existence  of  external  reality.  In  the  previous 
observations  we  have  assumed  that  our  natural  judg- 
ments could  be  accepted  without  question  in  regard 
to  the  existence  of  an  external  world,  even  of  the 
naive  type  supposed  to  be  actually  represented  in 
sensations.  But  illusions  and  hallucinations  come 
in  to  disturb  our  equanimity  in  such  matters.  We 
find  that  we  require  a  criterion  to  distinguish  between 
experiences  that  surely  attest  objective  reality  and 
such  as  represent  only  subjective  and  abnormal  states. 
We  have  even  to  assure  ourselves  that  there  is  any- 
thing except  our  mental  phenomena;  and  to  be  cer- 
tain that  there  is  a  supersensible  reality  not  repre- 
sented in  its  nature  in  sensation  is  another  conclusion 
which  the  utmost  care  only  can  attest.  We  have  to 
run  the  gauntlet  of  skepticism  in  the  very  field  of  the 
most  natural  and  frequent  experiences. 

If  we  have  to  be  so  skeptical  and  cautious  in  our 
normal  experiences,  what  will  be  said  of  our  duty 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       405 

in  regard  to  phenomena  claiming  to  be  supernormal, 
and  that  are  so  sporadic  and  rare  as  to  require  col- 
lection for  centuries,  perhaps,  in  order  to  assure  us 
of  their  meaning?  Every  one  knows  how  persistent 
doubt  has  been,  right  within  the  field  of  our  most  nat- 
ural phenomena.  What  should  it  be  when  we  are  not 
assured  of  what  the  facts  are  in  real  or  alleged  super- 
normal phenomena?  Sensations  are  so  well  defined 
and  so  universally  recognized  that  we  easily  under- 
stand what  we  mean  when  we  talk  and  think  about 
them  as  actual  occurrences.  Phenomena  purporting 
to  be  supernormal  represent  but  a  very  small  percent- 
age of  our  experience.  In  some  they  never  occur  at 
all,  and  in  those  with  whom  they  do  occur  they  are  so 
rare  as  to  represent  so  small  a  part  of  their  mental 
life  as  exposes  them  easily  to  the  suspicion  of  being 
casual  illusions  and  hallucinations,  and  unless  they 
occur  often  enough  and  are  collected  in  sufficient 
numbers,  with  credentials  that  give  them  scientific 
weight,  they  must  be  treated  as  the  products  of 
chance,  that  is,  of  causes  which  are  not  beyond  nor- 
mal interpretation.  We  cannot  form  hasty  conclu- 
sions from  occasional  facts  when  they  are  undoubted 
exceptions  to  the  ordinary  course  of  things.  They 
may  be  good  reasons  for  instituting  inquiry,  but 
until  they  articulate  with  the  order  of  our  normal 
experiences  they  have  to  be  received  with  caution. 
Facts  have  to  be  complex  enough  to  escape  the  in- 
terpretation of  chance  before  we  can  do  more  than 
suppose  them  indicative  of  some  agency  unusual. 
What  that  agency  is,  as  in  normal  experience  even, 
has  to  be  the  subject  of  much  more  prolonged  inquiry. 


404    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

I  have  made  my  observations  general  because  I 
intend  that  they  shall  apply,  not  merely  to  the  alleged 
phenomena  of  psychic  research,  but  also  to  all  un- 
usual events  in  our  experience.  They  apply  to  the 
belief  in  meteors,  radium,  unconscious  mental  states, 
evolution,  or  to  any  belief  introducing  new  concep- 
tions. The  observations  apply  all  the  more  to  such 
claims  as  the  existence  of  a  soul  after  death.  Not, 
however,  because  the  idea  is  new,  but  because  of  the 
moral  interests,  present  and  future,  involved  in  the 
belief,  and  because  of  the  passions  that  are  associated 
with  it.  If  we  have  great  difficulty  in  assuming  a 
soul  for  normal  experience,  so  much  the  greater  wiU 
be  this  difficulty  in  the  case  of  alleged  supernormal 
phenomena,  not  because  they  are  supernormal,  but 
because  of  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  proving  them 
to  be  facts  or  to  be  what  they  apparently  are.  The 
settlement  of  such  questions  must  be  left  to  those 
who  are  properly  qualified  to  distinguish  between 
illusory  and  genuine  phenomena  and  not  left  to 
every  interested  man  who  may  decide  to  study 
them.  In  this,  as  in  all  other  deeply  scientific  prob- 
lems, the  scientifically  trained  expert  must  be  the 
judge.  Any  one  may  report  his  experiences,  and 
possibly  even  the  untrained  man  may  report  facts 
less  clouded  by  theoretical  influences,  but  he  can- 
not be  permitted  to  monopolize  explanations.  He 
must  learn  to  defer  to  the  impartial  and  judicious 
investigation  of  men  who  have  dealt  with  large 
masses  of  associated  phenomena.  The  layman  is  not 
the  man  to  solve  the  largest  and  deepest  problems 
of  the  universe,  as  his  equipment  of  psychological 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       405 

and  other  knowledge  is  not  sufficient  to  justify  his 
attempt.  We  must  learn  to  trust  the  qualified  man 
in  this  subject  as  we  do  in  all  other  matters.  We 
would  not  think  of  boiilding  our  own  houses,  of  in- 
vestigating wireless  telegrams  for  ourselves,  of  doing 
our  own  plumbing,  of  assaying  our  ores  without  a 
previous  knowledge  of  the  process,  of  pleading  our 
law  cases  in  the  courts,  or  of  doing  anything  that 
requires  special  and  technical  knowledge.  But  some- 
how we  all  think  that  any  one  can  investigate  and 
determine  the  immortality  of  the  soul  or  dogmatically 
decide  against  it.  We  suppose  that  the  physical 
problems  of  the  universe  require  the  best  knowledge 
for  their  solution,  but  that  the  psychological  prob- 
lems, which  are,  in  fact,  far  more  abstruse  and  com- 
plicated, can  be  solved  by  any  man  whatever.  The 
presumptiveness  of  this  ought  to  be  apparent  to  every 
intelligent  man  or  to  any  that  claim  to  be  intelligent. 
The  layman  would  be  under  no  temptation  to 
dabble  in  these  subjects  if  the  scientific  man  per- 
formed his  duties.  Too  often  the  professional  man 
scoffs  at  all  that  he  hears  from  others,  and  places 
himself  where  he  has  either  to  reverse  his  judgment 
when  the  case  is  proved  against  him  or  to  remain 
in  blissful  ignorance  of  the  truth.  It  is  unfortunate 
for  us  to  have  to  admit  that  in  all  history  the  great 
movements  for  man's  intellectual  and  moral  advance- 
ment have  begun  among  the  laity  and  not  among 
the  scholars.  The  latter  are  so  identified  with  aris- 
tocratic tastes  and  beliefs  that  they  are  either  blind 
to  new  ideas  or  they  live  in  satisfied  indifference  to 
the  rights  of  humanity.    The  scientific  man  takes  the 


406    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

place  of  the  ancient  priest,  and  inherits  his  duties 
to  the  pubHc.  He  cannot  expect  the  support  of  that 
pubhc  unless  he  takes  an  interest  in  its  education 
and  welfare.  When  the  scientist  takes  to  an  aristo- 
cratic life  and  affects  to  despise  those  that  have  taken 
him  for  their  prophet,  he  must  not  be  surprised  when 
this  public  resorts  to  its  own  investigations  and 
throws  out  of  authority  him  who  ought  to  know 
more  than  the  layman.  The  sure  way  to  influence 
with  the  public  is  to  inspire  its  confidence,  and  the 
only  quality  that  will  do  this  is  that  of  respectful 
consideration  of  the  great  problems  which  humanity 
at  large  wishes  solved.  You  will  forfeit  its  respect 
and  confidence  if  you  do  not,  and,  as  in  many  other 
great  movements,  the  layman  will  depend  upon  him- 
self for  the  discovery  of  the  truth,  though  it  takes 
him  ages  to  do  what  the  scientific  man  might  do  in 
a  few  years.  If  there  are  facts  upon  which  an  opin- 
ion rests,  and  if  those  facts  repeat  themselves  from 
age  to  age,  no  skepticism  can  prevent  the  necessity 
for  their  consideration,  though  it  may  prevent  the 
investigation  which  they  deserve.  Science  cannot 
imitate  bigotry  and  dogmatism  after  protesting  so 
long  against  them  in  religion,  and  hence  it  must  either 
exercise  patience  and  sympathy  with  what  it  regards 
as  illusory  in  the  public  or  undertake  the  inquiries 
that  will  guide  the  layman  into  the  truth  which  he  is 
seeking. 

What  I  have  said  in  regard  to  morbid  psychology 
ought  to  reinforce  these  observations  beyond  meas- 
ure. It  is  to  be  regarded  as  more  than  a  warning 
against  inexpert  dabbling  with  the  problem,  and  also 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       407 

as  containing  another  set  of  facts  which  are  ex- 
tremely important  in  both  the  solution  of  the  issue 
and  in  limiting  the  knowledge  which  we  shall  have 
after  the  solution  is  effected.  Every  one  will  admit 
that  precautions  must  be  against  accepting  as  evi- 
dence of  a  soul  and  its  survival  the  phenomena  which 
can  be  referred  to  secondary  personality.  But  it 
does  not  so  often  occur  to  many  to  remark  that  these 
phenomena  may  be  treated  as  initial  stages  of  mental 
conditions  which  may  actually  lead  to  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  supernormal.  I  shall  not  here  enter  into 
any  elaborate  proof  of  this  possibility  or  of  the  ex- 
planation of  it.  There  is  no  space  for  this.  I  can 
only  suggest  this  possible  view  of  these  mental  condi- 
tions and  proceed  to  indicate  how  it  determines  the 
limitations  of  human  knowledge  concerning  the 
transcendental.  The  reader  must  be  supposed  to  have 
been  sufficiently  acquainted  with  abnormal  psychol- 
ogy and  with  the  phenomena  of  subliminal  mental 
states  to  see  and  appreciate  the  point  without  elabo- 
ration, and  if  he  does  not  see  and  appreciate  it,  so 
much  the  worse  for  his  disposition  to  reject  the  con- 
sideration of  the  matter. 

If  modern  psychology  has  shown  us  anything,  it 
has  shown  us  the  function  of  the  mind  to  modify 
whatever  passes  through  its  alembic.  It  is  not  a 
wholly  passive  transmitter  of  impressions,  but  takes 
them  up  and  moulds  them  into  its  own  forms  and 
meaning.  Now  as  secondary  personality  is  often 
accompanied  by  hyperaesthesia,  or  extremely  acute 
sensibility,  it  may  be  the  initial  stage  of  that  condi- 
tion which  leads  to  rapport  with  a  spiritual  world. 


408    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

This  view  of  it  was  actually  taken  by  Immanuel  Kant, 
though  secondary  personality  as  a  systematic  mental 
process  was  not  known  in  his  time.  He  called  it  ab- 
normal mental  conditions.  If  rapport  with  a  spirit- 
ual world  be  established  in  this  way,  communication 
with  it  would  be  affected  by  the  medium  through 
which  it  passed,  and  limited  to  the  same  extent.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  important  facts  for  the  layman 
and  public  generally  to  master.  The  tendency  is  to 
assume  that,  if  communication  with  the  discamate  be 
possible  at  all,  it  will  guarantee  the  most  free  and 
remarkable  revelations.  There  is  no  excuse  whatever 
for  this  except  the  expectations  which  traditional 
theology  has  created  and  which  our  poor  newspaper 
editors  in  their  omniscience  like  to  indulge.  It  is 
not  a  revelation  of  wonders  that  man  needs.  This 
demand  and  faith  were  the  characteristics  of  imperial- 
istic ages  when  he  was  governed,  not  educated.  Self- 
reliance  does  not  flourish  in  an  environment  of  de- 
pendence on  a  revelation  that  is  not  the  product  of 
man's  own  activity.  If  he  is  to  retain  his  individual- 
ity he  must  expect  his  knowledge  to  express  his  own 
mental  action,  and  any  access  to  the  outside  world, 
material  or  spiritual,  must  reflect  the  influence  of 
the  medium  through  which  its  agency  passes.  When 
that  medium  is  abnormal,  he  must  expect  it  to  color 
the  revelation  which  it  transmits.  A  sane  man  would 
not  be  troubled  by  its  triviality  and  confusion.  On 
the  contrary,  he  ought  to  welcome  them  as  indicating 
the  limitations  which  nature  places  upon  curiosity, 
while  it  establishes  the  possibility  of  invoking  hope, 
as  personal  experience  invokes  history  in  the  regula- 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       409 

tion  of  conduct.  The  abnormal  medium  through 
which  knowledge  of  another  world  comes  may  not 
exclude  the  fact  of  such  a  life,  but  it  teaches  us  cau- 
tion about  hasty  conclusions  in  regard  to  its  nature, 
and  we  may  rely  upon  the  law  of  evolution  as  the 
expression  of  progress  to  expect  that  continued  exist- 
ence will  open  the  way  to  the  realization  of  a  spirit- 
ual ideal.  To  make  the  revelation  intelligible  in  terms 
of  our  usual  sensory  notions  of  things  would  only 
be  to  divert  human  aspirations  toward  ideals  too 
material  for  another  form  of  existence;  while  its 
passage  through  the  colored  medium  of  conditions 
not  adjusted  to  the  normal  character  of  both  worlds 
reveals  all  we  need  and  conceals  what  we  do  not  need. 
In  previous  volumes  I  have  emphasized  the  impor- 
tance of  a  belief  in  a  future  life.  I  qualified  this 
view  of  it,  but  did  not  discuss  the  limitations  of  its 
usefulness  at  any  length.  I  wanted  to  place  in  clear 
light  its  function  in  social  and  ethical  progress.  But 
the  belief  in  a  future  life  is  not  the  only  agency  that 
has  acted  on  the  moral  and  political  life  of  the  ages 
in  the  direction  of  progress.  There  have  been  ac- 
companying influences  which  have  been  quite  as 
effective,  though  they  were  not  always  rightly  ap- 
plied. Every  one  who  has  read  history  with  an 
impartial  judgment  will  recognize  that  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  was  a  powerful  influence  in  mould- 
ing all  Occidental  life  wherever  it  became  a  recognized 
belief.  But  it  was  not  the  mere  belief  in  survival 
after  death  that  determined  the  moral  and  social 
ideals  of  these  centuries.  The  accompaniments  of 
that  belief  did  as  much  or  more  than  the  belief  itself 


410    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

to  fix  and  protect  certain  ethical  conceptions  which 
now  characterize  our  Hfe  and  did  not  characterize 
Greco-Roman  civilization.  Along  with  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  which  was  in  a  measure  at  least  insti- 
gated by  the  belief  in  a  future  life,  and  the  sanctity 
of  woman  and  motherhood,  which  was  directly  pro- 
duced by  the  belief,  came  the  doctrine  of  limited 
probation,  which  was  the  most  important  and  the 
most  powerful  influence  of  all  these  centuries  in  devel- 
oping certain  habits  of  mind  and  will  in  men.  This 
probation,  which  was  limited  to  this  life,  was  asso- 
ciated with  a  system  of  rewards  and  punishments 
that  was  attractive  or  frightful  enough  to  make  men 
pause  in  their  conduct  if  bad, '  and  to  invite  them 
onward  if  good.  The  Greek  and  Roman  mind  had 
not  worked  out  its  system  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments as  clearly  as  did  Christianity.  Or  if  it  had 
recognized  the  system,  as  it  did  in  such  productions 
as  Plato  and  Vergil,  it  did  not  limit  the  probation 
so  definitely  to  the  present  life  as  did  one  branch  of 
Christian  belief.  This,  with  the  feeling  that  the  next 
life  was  inferior  in  character  to  the  present,  as  re- 
flected in  the  messages  of  the  oracles  and  similar  phe- 
nomena, prevented  the  belief  from  being  as  useful 
and  as  powerful  an  incentive  to  aff^ect  conduct  as  in 
Christian  ages.  The  idealizing  of  the  next  life  by 
Christianity,  if  we  were  righteous,  and  the  terrible 
consequences  in  the  next  of  sin  in  this  life,  brought 
the  problem  of  conduct  so  clearly  before  the  con- 
science that  the  moral  law  had  a  rigidity  that  no 
ethics  of  Greco-Roman  civilization  ever  possessed, 
except  as  political  laws.     These  were  earthly  aff^airs. 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       411 

There  was  no  connection  between  the  moraHtj  due 
the  state  and  that  due  to  one's  future  hfe.  In  Chris- 
tianity social  and  rehgious  duties  were  the  same,  and 
a  man's  salvation  was  gained  or  lost  by  the  charac- 
ter of  his  relation  to  his  fellow  man,  as  well  as  by 
that  of  his  relation  to  God.  When  this  morality  was 
enforced  by  an  elaborate  system  of  rewards  and 
punishments  and  the  limitation  of  probation  to  this 
life,  with  added  political  power  of  great  extent  and 
strength,  we  can  imagine  that  the  belief  in  a  future 
life,  merely  as  a  belief,  was  not  the  only  influence 
that  gave  unanimity  to  modern  social  and  political 
ethics.  We  must  not  forget,  therefore,  that  there 
are  other  influences  than  a  belief  in  a  life  after  death 
that  are  quite  as  effective  in  moulding  character, 
and  that  we  must  be  as  careful  as  Christianity  was 
in  its  association  of  social  ideals  with  its  doctrine  to 
see  that  the  purely  personal  element  of  the  belief 
does  not  absorb  our  interest  and  enthusiasm.  It 
should  be  nothing  more  than  a  means  for  fixing  a 
basis  for  that  view  of  human  life  which  protects 
ideals  that  materialism  cannot  protect  with  all  its 
importance  for  man's  present  conditions. 

The  great  abuse  to  which  the  belief  in  a  future 
life  was  so  long  addicted  was  a  morbid  interest  in 
another  life  than  the  present.  This  interest,  how- 
ever, and  its  consequences  were  modified  by  empha- 
sizing social  and  individual  duties  in  the  present 
aff^ecting  the  life  of  the  next  state.  But  with  all 
this,  the  conceptions  which  absorbed  attention  were 
not  of  the  kind  to  keep  a  healthy  attitude  toward  the 
present  life  and  its  more  immediate  duties.    This  may 


412    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

have  been  due  to  the  abandonment  of  the  original 
social  and  ethical  ideals  of  the  Church.  But  what- 
ever the  cause,  and  it  did  involve  the  properlj  altru- 
istic and  human  ethics  of  the  early  movement,  the 
otherworldliness  of  so  many  centuries  was  such  an 
abuse  of  the  belief  in  a  future  life  that  the  reaction 
has  carried  with  it  as  fatal  an  indifference  to  its 
possible  importance  as  the  previous  ages  had  main- 
tained an  exaggerated  estimate  of  it.  All  the  more 
danger  must  attend  the  establishment  of  communi- 
cation with  another  world  of  this  kind.  All  the  past 
has  been  free  from  any  admission  of  communication, 
human  hopes  not  resting  on  this  fact,  but  upon  faith. 
But  the  present  has  abandoned  its  faith  and  seeks 
knowledge,  and  this  can  be  obtained  only  through 
communication  with  a  spiritual  world.  To  be  con- 
vinced of  this  tends  to  create  a  morbid  interest  much 
worse  than  the  mediaeval  one  in  another  life.  It  lets 
loose  all  the  passions  of  human  nature  to  explore 
that  aspect  of  another  life  which  it  does  not  need 
and  to  ignore  the  true  aspect  of  the  belief  for  its 
illusory  one.  It  is  not  communication  with  an- 
other and  spiritual  world  at  pleasure  that  we  want, 
but  reasons  to  believe  that  there  is  another.  Nothing 
is  more  unhealthy  morally  than  a  morbid  interest  in 
communicating  with  our  deceased  friends.  No  doubt 
it  has  been  this,  however,  that  has  kept  alive  the 
practice,  and  with  it  the  phenomena  which  attract 
scientific  attention.  But  nevertheless  it  is  the  duty 
of  scientific  men,  while  they  recognize  the  importance 
of  the  subject,  to  discourage  the  emotional  passion 
to  communicate  for  its  consolations  and  to  attack  the 


RESERVATIONS   AND    MORALS       413 

problem  from  its  higher  level  of  indicating  the  mean- 
ing of  the  universe.  I  have  no  doubt  that  many 
people  imagine  that  it  was  a  personal  interest  that 
attracted  my  own  efforts  to  experiments  of  the  kind. 
Nothing  can  be  more  mistaken.  I  have  no  personal 
interest  in  the  matter.  I  would  not  waste  my  time 
and  energy  in  communicating  with  my  deceased 
friends  if  I  did  not  believe  that  the  results  threw 
light  upon  the  fundamental  problems  of  science  and 
philosophy.  I  do  not  care  a  penny  what  the  other 
life  is  like,  nor  for  the  pleasure  of  communicating 
with  friends  there.  But  I  do  care  for  the  question 
whether  my  duties  are  commensurate  with  the  possi- 
bilities of  realizing  their  ideals.  Nor  is  this  view 
of  the  matter  a  reflection  on  the  lack  of  human  inter- 
est in  one's  friends.  That  may  be  as  strong  with- 
out as  with  communication  with  them.  But  no  one 
should  be  dependent  on  the  meagre  relations  which 
are  exhibited  in  all  alleged  communications  for  his 
happiness.  He  only  unfits  himself  for  the  actual  life 
in  which  he  must  pass  his  days  and  years.  It  is  only 
the  scientific  aspect  of  the  matter  that  should  appeal 
to  our  minds,  with  the  ethical  reflexes  which  it  brings 
to  our  views  of  the  world. 

The  value  of  the  belief  in  a  future  life  is  in  what 
it  indicates  about  the  importance  of  personality.  It 
implies  that  nature  is  quite  as  careful  of  personal 
consciousness  as  it  is  of  matter  and  energy.  This 
influence  of  the  doctrine  would  not  have  been  so 
clearly  felt  or  seen  in  the  middle  ages  as  in  the  pres- 
ent age.  Antiquity  felt  it  because,  with  its  associa- 
|*:ion  of  human  brotherhood,  the  logical  eff^ect  of  the 


414   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

belief,  the  doctrine  was  a  direct  assault  upon  the 
political  institutions  of  Greece  and  Rome.  But  the 
middle  ages  had  abandoned  the  eternity  of  matter 
and  made  it  a  contemptible  thing  because  it  was 
created  and  ephemeral.  Morality  and  religious  as- 
pirations were  associated  with  the  eternal  and  per- 
manent. But  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the 
conservation  of  energy  came  in  to  restore  material 
things  to  dignity  and  respect,  and  consciousness 
became,  with  the  revival  of  materialism,  the  subor- 
dinate fact  of  existence  and  value.  No  wonder  that 
materialistic  ethics  come  in  to  threaten  civilization 
with  the  same  consequences  that  carried  Greece  and 
Rome  to  their  graves.  Personality  has  no  permanent 
value  in  the  materialistic  scheme,  whether  political 
or  ethical,  and  it  needs  the  belief  in  a  future  life  to 
establish  at  least  an  equal  relative  value  for  con- 
sciousness with  dead  matter  and  its  phenomena.  We 
have  been  taught  so  long  to  respect  personality  and 
what  is  permanent  that  we  cannot  expect  to  retain 
the  modern  conception  of  ethics  as  based  upon  it, 
if  we  are  to  suppose  that  nature  cares  less  for  con- 
sciousness than  it  does  for  matter,  especially  when 
our  recognized  ideals  place  personality  above  imper- 
sonal phenomena.  The  doctrine,  therefore,  of  a 
future  life  needs  recognition,  not  for  the  possibilities 
of  communication  with  a  spiritual  world,  but  for  the 
protection  of  ideals  that  will  not  live  without  it, 
ideals  whose  value  no  one  dare  question  without  for- 
feiting the  right  to  direct  men's  conduct. 

It  is  no  use  to  say  that  our  duties  lie  right  in  the 
present  and  that  any  discussion  of  a  future  life,  with 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       415 

emphasis  of  its  importance,  only  distorts  the  vision. 
For  I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  the  truth  of  the 
one  and  the  liability  of  the  other.  I  should  agree  as 
emphatically  as  any  one  may  wish  to  urge  it  that  our 
duties  pertain  directly  to  this  life.  I  have  discussed 
this  in  my  other  allusions  to  the  subject.  But  we 
cannot  forget  the  source  to  civilization  of  these  very 
duties  and  the  influences  which  gave  them  currency 
and  effectiveness.  Our  morals,  when  they  have  once 
been  instigated,  partake  of  the  nature  of  habit,  and 
more  especially  of  the  influence  of  environment. 
These  morals  have  been  the  product  of  Christian 
thought  and  teaching  with  the  idea  of  a  future  life 
in  view.  The  decline  in  that  belief  in  the  individual 
is  not  followed  necessarily  and  immediately  by  the 
same  decline  in  the  community,  and  hence  morality 
survives  long  in  the  social  environment  after  it  has 
passed  in  the  individual,  and  his  conduct  will  often 
reflect  adaptation  to  it  when  it  does  not  arise  from 
an  inner  principle.  A  change  in  this  environment 
invariably  follows  the  extension  of  a  change  in  fun- 
damental beliefs.  Hence  we  cannot  expect  the  ideals 
based  upon  the  value  of  personality  to  long  survive 
its  passage.  The  fact  that  civilization  does  not  go 
to  the  devil  on  the  conversion  of  one  man  to  mate- 
rialism is  no  indication  that  the  belief  in  a  future 
life  has  no  effect  in  the  world.  We  simply,  as  indi- 
viduals, retain  what  our  environment  represents  until 
that  environment  changes,  when  we  follow  it.  Let 
the  social  order  once  accept  the  view  that  moral  per- 
sonality has  no  more  permanence  or  value  in  the 
world  than  organic  life,  and  we  shall  soon  see  whither 


416   PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

things  will  drift.  In  fact,  some  of  us  see  very  clearly 
tendencies  which  our  cultured  and  independent  neigh- 
bors do  not  see  at  all.  The  materialistic  standard 
of  life  has  so  infected  even  those  who  still  have  an 
interest  in  a  spiritual  order  that  they  do  not  see 
the  fateful  progress  of  those  morals  which  are  mov- 
ing straight  to  social  perdition. 

All  this,  however,  is  no  reason  why  we  should  rush 
pell-mell  into  the  follies  of  modern  spiritualism.  It 
should  only  teach  us  frankness  and  honesty  with 
regard  to  the  real  issues  of  all  reflections  on  the 
comprehensive  meaning  which  such  an  outlook  for 
personality  would  offer  man's  hopes  and  efforts,  and 
the  morbid  side  of  those  interests  could  be  rationally 
held  in  check  by  sober  scientific  investigation.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  even  Christianity  has  so  emphasized 
the  personal  and  selfish  side  of  salvation  as  to  forget 
the  social  aspect  of  its  original  founder's  teachings. 
The  effect  of  it  has  been  to  see  in  it  nothing  but  a 
personal  boon  to  be  sought  for  ourselves  instead  of 
using  it  merely  as  a  means  of  protecting  the  highest 
ideals  of  social  and  ethical  life.  Until  this  is  done 
the  doctrine  will  have  all  the  objectionable  features 
which  any  selfish  passion  has,  and  nothing  has 
brought  spiritualism  into  more  contempt  than  the 
insane  passion  to  be  always  communicating  with  de- 
ceased friends,  and  asking  their  advice  in  the  direc- 
tion of  our  affairs,  or  consulting  mediums  about  the 
stock  market  and  our  love-affairs.  When  it  comes 
to  this  I  think  I  could  justify  Providence  if  he  bot- 
tled the  human  race  up  in  Dante's  Inferno.  We  need 
to  keep  such  possibilities  under  purely  scientific  su- 


RESERVATIONS    AND    MORALS       417 

pervision,  and  utilize  the  results  of  it  in  the  same 
way  that  we  utilize  those  of  physical  science.  We 
adapt  the  results  of  physical  science  to  our  daily 
wants,  but  we  do  not  go  about  investigating  their 
niysteries  for  ourselves.  We  have  no  more  business 
to  make  a  passion  of  this  interest  in  a  future  life 
than  we  have  to  make  one  of  inquiry  into  radium 
when  we  are  not  equipped  for  the  study  of  it.  What 
we  believe  and  know  should  be  definitely  articulated 
with  our  normal  experience  and  made  assimilable 
with  it.  We  should  improve  the  opportunities  which 
occasion  may  offer  to  scientifically  inquire  into  facts 
and  make  records  of  them,  but  that  duty  or  privi- 
lege should  not  be  interpreted  as  a  license  to  live 
in  the  "  supernatural."  There  is  always  a  middle 
course  in  the  presence  of  important  facts,  and  there 
is  no  more  reason  for  the  extreme  of  skepticism  and 
contempt  than  there  is  for  credulity  and  worship. 
The  one  is  as  reprehensible  as  the  other,  and  the 
scientific  man  who  indulges  in  his  extreme  only  de- 
prives himself  of  the  influence  which  he  might  have  to 
direct  human  interest  in  better  channels. 

But  if  the  belief  in  a  future  life  has  any  dangers 
attending  its  maintenance,  and  if  the  habit  or  inter- 
est in  trying  indiscriminate  communication  with  a 
spiritual  world  has  any  abuses  to  which  it  is  exposed, 
these  will  not  be  prevented  by  laughing  at  the  at- 
tempts to  treat  the  matter  scientifically.  Such  at- 
tempts, if  the  facts  prove  it  or  appear  to  prove  it, 
will  only  react  on  the  man  who  sneers,  and  result 
only  in  the  forfeiture  of  his  influence  on  the  commun- 
ity.    It  is  the  duty  of  the  qualified  man  to  lead  the 


418    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  BORDERLAND 

public,  not  to  let  it  seek  its  own  information  in  il- 
legitimate ways.  There  is  no  excuse  whatever  for  an 
aristocratic  retirement  from  these  questions  simply 
because  they  happen  to  interest  the  plebs.  In  a 
democracy,  where  we  cannot  govern,  we  have  to  edu- 
cate and  persuade.  The  failure  rightly  to  do  this 
latter  means  that  we  shall  have  to  adopt  the  political 
institutions  of  the  ages  which  we  pretend  to  despise. 
In  our  present  social  institutions  the  scientific  man 
must  choose  between  the  functions  of  an  educator 
and  a  tyrant,  if  he  expects  to  have  his  own  ideas  real- 
ized. Otherwise  he  only  obtains,  but  perhaps  does 
not  earn,  his  bread.  If  it  be  true  that  there  is  a 
future  life,  the  intelligent  man  is  the  one  to  reveal 
it  to  us  under  the  limitations  with  which  it  is  to  be 
accepted.  It  it  be  a  question  which  we  cannot  solve, 
this  must  be  as  intelligently  disseminated.  We  can- 
not rest  in  the  mere  ipse  dixit  of  any  man  in  regard 
to  it.  Whether  true  or  not,  the  human  sympathy  of 
the  scholar  is  the  proper  inheritance  of  the  world 
from  the  scientific  man,  and  any  failure  to  bequeath 
this  property  will  only  insure  the  loss  of  one's  use- 
fulness. 

We  are  passing  through  the  reactionary  period 
against  the  exclusive  otherworldliness  of  the  past 
centuries,  and  as  it  has  become  a  mark  of  intelligence 
to  disbelieve  all  that  the  religious  ages  held  sacred, 
we  must  expect  scientific  Philistines  to  parade  their 
peculiar  wisdom  as  the  last  word  of  omniscience. 
When  the  materialistic  cycle  has  run  its  course  and 
civilization  has  ended  in  repeating  the  experience  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  we  shall  expect  sober  thinking 


RESERVATIONS   AND    MORALS       419 

to  begin  again.  We  shall  then  learn  what  the  larger 
view  of  the  universe  for  a  spiritual  life  means,  and 
listen  to  the  advice  which  experience  has  always  shown 
us  in  regard  to  the  value  of  the  belief  which  may 
even  reconcile  men  to  a  life  of  pain  and  suifering. 
The  minister  and  the  moralist  have  to  meet  situations 
in  the  lives  of  individuals  which  no  skeptic  can  soothe. 
Stoicism  is  a  very  good  thing  for  the  man  who  has 
a  healthy  digestion  and  all  the  worldly  goods  to  make 
him  independent  of  nature  and  his  fellows.  But 
economic  success  is  neither  a  security  for  the  truth 
of  skepticism  nor  a  substitute  for  the  finer  moral 
qualities  which  keep  the  less  successful  from  a  policy 
of  confiscation.  We  shall  find  as  time  passes  that 
the  social  and  political  movements  of  the  present 
age  are  the  logical  consequence  of  its  materialism, 
and  that  the  correction  of  them  must  come  with  that 
larger  view  of  the  meaning  of  man  and  his  duties, 
which  make  sacrifice  a  virtue  as  well  as  an  interest. 
I  believe  that  the  evidence  for  a  future  life  is  sufficient 
to  make  it  the  only  rational  hypothesis  to  account 
for  the  facts,  but  I  ^o  not  believe  that  we  have 
reached  that  amount  of  scientific  proof  which  is 
necessary  to  make  the  belief  general  in  the  minds  of 
the  intellectual  classes.  The  duty  lies  in  further 
investigation,  until  its  perplexities,  which  are  many, 
have  been  removed.  This  is  the  necessary  step  in  the 
establishment  of  a  conviction  that  carries  in  its  flux 
the  destinies  of  the  coming  ages  in  their  resurrection 
from  the  materialism  of  all  our  present  life. 

THE    END. 


INDEX 


Abercrombie,  Dr.,  cited,  11,  78, 
123. 

Abernethy,  Mr.,  cited,  11. 

Agnosticism,  201. 

Anaxagoras,  364. 

Apparitions,  hallucinations  of,  160, 
161;  three  types  of,  173;  rela- 
tion of,  to  hallucinations,  177, 
179,  182,  183-185;  in  telepathy, 
191;  of  the  dead,  193,  195;  ma- 
terializations, 213. 

Aristotle,   20. 

Auto-hypnosis.     See  Hypnosis. 

Automatic  writing,  in  secondary 
personality,  263,  284,  287,  292; 
to  discover  source  of  hallucina- 
tion,  349. 

B.,  case  of  Mme.,  261  et  seq. 
Beauchamp,   case   of   Miss,   274   et 

seq.,   353. 
Bernheim,    cited,     347. 
Bourne,   case   of   Ansel,    122,   261, 

353. 
Braid    of    Manchester,    cited,    335, 

339. 
Bramwell,   cited,    347. 

Carpenter,  Dr.,  cited,  79,  123,  124. 

Christianity,  its  relation  to  psychic 
phenomena,  200;  its  doctrines 
regarding  the  soul,  301  et  seq.; 
its  influence  on  the  transcenden- 
tal world,  390;  its  eschatology, 
410. 

Christian    Science,    329. 

Clairvoyance,  example  of  fraudu- 
lent, 230  et  seq.;  clairvoyant  per- 
ception may  be  mistaken  for 
evidence  of   reincarnation,   380. 

Coleridge's  "  Biographia  Literaria," 
cited,  76. 

Cord-tying,  Prof.  Zollner's  case  of, 
233  et  seq. 

Crystal-gazing,  a  stimulus  to  re- 
surgence of  long-forgot  or  un- 
observed memories,  81;  cases  of 
Miss  Goodrich-Freer:  (a)  Dr. 
Henderson,  Taunton  Gaol,  81; 
(b)   pool  of  blood  recalling  un- 


x)bserved     red     paint,     81;  (c) 

young  lady  in  carriage,  82;  (d) 

newspaper       announcement  of 
death,  82. 

Davey's   slate-writing,   242. 

Delusions,  their  distinction  from 
illusions  and  hallucinations,  198. 

Democracy,   201,    203. 

Democritus,   18,   19,  23,  364. 

Descartes,  361,  382. 

Disintegration.     See  Dissociation. 

Dissociation  (or  Disintegration), 
the  law  of,  89;  the  complement 
of  memory,  111;  operation  of, 
113,  114;  encouraged  by  abstrac- 
tion, 115;  distraction,  117;  char- 
acteristic of  the  abnormal  life, 
119;  illustrated  by  limitation  of 
field  of  vision,  120;  cases  of: 
(a)  girl  from  the  Salpetriere, 
121;  (b)  Ansel  Bourne  case, 
122;  (c)  under  stimulus  of  ty- 
phoid, 123;  (d)  case  of  a  sur- 
geon, 123;  (e)  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  123;  (f)  minister  repeat- 
ing sermon,  124;  (g)  disturbed 
memory  of  words,  124;  (h)  the 
Hanna  case,  125;  (i)  under 
stimulus  of  influenza,  126;  (j) 
a  case  of  violence  in  subcon- 
scious state,  127;  dissociation 
the  initial  step  in  diseases  of 
personality,  128;  in  abnormal 
phenomena,  256.  See  also  Mem- 
ory. 

Dreams,  meaning  assigned  to,  by 
ancients  and  savages,  2;  distinc- 
tion between,  and  sense-impres- 
sions, 3;  pathological  explana- 
tion of,  3;  their  relation  to 
memory,    104. 

Ecstasy,   a   case   of,   267. 
Eleatics,  the,   364,   365. 
Empedocles,    18,    19,   23. 
Epicureans,   their   doctrine  regard- 
ing the  soul,  301. 

Flournoy,  Prof.,  cited,  286,  293- 
295. 


421 


422 


INDEX 


Fox   sisters,   203,   204.  ,  ,  ,.  , 

Future   life,    importance  of  belief 

in,    412    et   seq.     See  also    Im- 
mortality. 

Goodrich-Freer,   Miss,   cited,  81. 
Griesinger,  cited,   167. 
Gurney,  Edmund,  quoted,  154. 

Hallucinations,  interpretation  of, 
by  ancients,  2;  distinction  be- 
tween illusions  and,  130,  153, 
155;  illustrations  of,  133,  161- 
167;  definitions  of,  154,  156; 
veridical  and  falsidical  (or  sub- 
jective), 157;  extra-organic  and 
intra-organic,  157;  correlation 
of,  with  primary  and  secondary 
stimuli,  158,  159;  cases  of:  (a) 
apparitions  seen  by  Dr.  Nicolai, 
160;  (b)  apparitions,  cited  by 
Dr.  Sidis,  161;  (c)  visual  sen- 
sation of  red,  from  nosebleed, 
162;  (d)  multiple  personality 
related  by  Dr.  Morton  Prince, 
187;  produced  by  dreams  and 
deliria  (with  illustrations),  161; 
produced  by  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, 164;  causes  of,  165-169; 
psychologic  meaning  of,  169-197; 
subconscious  personality  able  to 
produce,  188;  hallucinatory  in- 
fluences in  telepathy,  191,  194; 
Doctor  Janet's  treatment  of, 
349. 

Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  cited,  76;  his 
law  of  redintegration,  80. 

Hanford,  Rev.  S.,  cited  by  Dr. 
Carpenter,  79. 

Hanna,  case  of  Rev.  Mr.,  125,  350- 
352. 

Hansen,    cited,    189. 

Hare,    Prof.,    232,    237. 

Heraclitus,    362,    363. 

Hermann,  illusions  of,  225,  242. 

Hindu  juggler,  described  by  Dr. 
Hodgson,  239-243. 

Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,  cited,  122, 
269;  his  account  of  Hindu  jug- 
gler quoted,  239-241. 

Hypnosis,  in  Ansel  Bourne  case, 
123,  271;  in  case  of  Mme.  B., 
261  et  seq.;  consent  of  patient 
necessary,  338;  definition  of, 
343;  its  utility  in  therapeu- 
tics, 346  et  seq.;  auto-hypnosis, 
340. 

Hypnotic  phenomena,  their  relation 
to  memory,   104. 

Hypnotic  suggestion,  as  a  stimulus 
pf  hallucinations,  164,  165;  sub- 


conscious action  tinder,  257, 
258;  applied  to  therapeutics, 
348  et  seq. 

Hypnotism,  and  therapeutics,  333 
et  seq.;  errors  of  Mesmer  re- 
garding, 334;  Braid's  demonstra- 
tions of,  335;  popular  miscon- 
ception of,  336  et  seq.;  cases  ot 
application  of,  in  therapeutics: 
(a)  Dr.  Sidis's  treatment  of  lost 
personal  identity,  348;  (b)  Dr. 
Janet's  treatment  of  hallucina- 
tions. 349;  (c)  the  Hanna  case 
of  lost  knowledge,  350-352  (see 
also  125);  (d)  Miss  Beau- 
champ's  case  of  multiple  person- 
ality, 353  {see  also  274);  (e) 
the  Ansel  Bourne  case,  353 
(see  also  125,  261);  (f)  amnesia 
mistaken  for  hemiplegia,  354; 
(g)  other  types  of  functional 
troubles,  354  et  seq.;  (h)  chronic 
alcoholism,  356;  (i)  vicious  and 
degenerate  children,  357;  proper 
use  of,   359. 

Hysteria,  hallucinations  in,  pro- 
duced by  tactual  stimuli,  259. 

Idealism,  205. 

Illusions,  interpretations  of,  by 
ancients,  2;  distinction  between 
valid  and  illusory  mental  states, 
38;  tests  of,  62;  definitions  of, 
129;  distinction  between  hallu- 
cination and,  130;  illustrations 
of,  131,  132;  types  of,  135;  (I.) 
Organic  Illusions,  illustrations 
of,  136-142;  (II.)  Functional 
Illusions,  illustrations  of,  143- 
148;  distinction  between  organic 
and  functional  illusions,  150-152; 
danger  of,  in  investigating  psy- 
chic phenomena,  218  et  seq.;  in 
evidence  of  reincarnation,  371 
et  seq. 

Immortality,  tenacity  of  main  be- 
lief in,  361;  personal,  366. 
See  also  Future  Life,  Soul, 
Spiritualism. 

James,    Prof.    William,    123,    269, 

271;    cited,   154. 
Janet,   Dr.   Pierre,   quoted,   261    et 

seq.;  cited,  340,  347. 
Judgment,  defined,  44;    its  relation 

to   sensation,   48   et  seq.;  causal 

and   classifying,    50  et  seq.;  65. 

Kant,  202,  203,  387,  408. 
Keller,   illusions  of,   225,  242. 
Kraft-Ebing,  cited,  347. 


INDEX 


4^ 


Lehman,  cited,  189. 
Lemaitre,  Prof.,  286,  290,  291. 
Leubuscher,    cited,    167. 
Liebeault,   cited,    347. 

Materialism,  201,  205;  contro- 
versy between  spiritualism  and, 
299;     mysticism    of    Greek,    389. 

Materializations,    213. 

Memory,  definition  of,  70;  subdi- 
visions of,   72. 

(I.)  Retention,  theories  of, 
73;  instances  of,  in  abnormal 
states:  (a)  ignorant  young 
woman  reciting  dead  languages, 
76;  (b)  three  cases  of  the  re- 
call of  forgotten  foreign  lan- 
guages, 71,  78;  (c)  three  cases 
of  mature  recollections  of  oc- 
currences in  infancy,  78-80; 
(d)  instances  of  recall  of  for- 
gotten languages  when  near 
death  80,  81;  crystal  vision  as 
stimulus  to  resurgence  of  long- 
forgotten  or  unobserved  memo- 
ries, 83  (for  cases  see  Crystal- 
Gazing),  retention  of  subliminal 
impressions,  83 ;  hallucinations 
under  anaesthetics  from  impres- 
sions not  consciously  perceived, 
83. 

(II.)  REPRODUCTION,  illustra- 
tion of,  85;  general  character- 
istics of,  86;  its  relation  to  sub- 
consciousness, 253;  Sir  Wm. 
Hamilton's  law  of  redintegra- 
tion, 86;  the  law  of  disintegra- 
tion, 89;  subdivisions  of  the 
law  of  redintegration:  (a)  simi- 
larity, 89-93;  (b)  contiguity,  93- 
98;  relation  of  reproduction  to 
retention  and  recognition,  98  et 
seq. 

(III.)  Imagination  or  Repre- 
sentation, definition  of,  101; 
relation  of  hypnotic  phenomena 
and  dreams  to,    104. 

(IV.)  Recognition,  the  con- 
scious side  of  memory,   107. 

Dissociation  and  obliviscence 
the  complement  of  memory,  112; 
{see  also  Dissociation). 
Dr.  Hodgson's  article  on 
"Malobservation  and  Lapse  of 
Memory"  quoted,  239-243; 
function  of  memory  toward  per- 
sonality, 249.  See  also  Dissocia- 
tion. 

Mind,  its  relation  to  the  body,  318 
et  seq.;  influence  of  conscious- 
ness   on    bodily    conditions,    323 


et  seq.;  lack  of  scientific  proof 
of  independent  reality  of,  398 
et  seq. 

Mesmer,  334. 

Mesmerism,  335. 

Moll,    cited,    347. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  349;  "The  Sur- 
vival of  Human  Personality " 
quoted,    261. 

Myopia,  a  cause  of  hallucinations, 
167. 

Neo-platonism,   389. 
Nicolai,  Dr.,  quoted,  160. 
Nominalism,    3. 

Obliviscence.     See  Dissociation. 
Ochorowics,   cited,   347. 
Odylic   force,    334. 

Pantheism,   386. 

Parish,  quoted,  154,  166. 

Personality,  general  and  psycho- 
logical definitions  of,  246  et 
seq.  See  also  Secondary  Per- 
sonality. 

"  Phantasms  of  the  Living,"  cited, 
173,    192. 

Plato,  299,  362,  363,  365,  366,  389. 

Podmore's  "  Modern  Spiritualism," 
205. 

Prince,  Dr.  Morton,  cited,  187, 
259,  273  et  seq.;  353;  "The 
Dissociation  of  a  Personality," 
274. 

Psychical  Research,  Society  for, 
204;  its  "Proceedings"  cited, 
173,   189,   192,  239. 

Psychic  phenomena,  gospel  refer- 
ences to,  200.  See  also  Spirit- 
ualism. 

Psychology,  contest  between  nomi- 
nalism and  realism,  3;  normal 
and  abnormal,  8;  importance  of 
abnormal,  in  study  of  insanity, 
9;  relation  of  secondary  per- 
sonality to  normal  and  abnormal, 
13;  sense  perception,  15  et  seq.; 
realism    and    idealism,    31;      35 

:  et  seq.;  judgment  defined,  44; 
relations  of  judgment  to  sensa- 
tion, 45  et  seq.;  inference  de- 
fined, 63;  memory,  70  et  seq.; 
dissociation  and  obliviscence.  111 
et  seq.;  psychological  phenom- 
ena of  spiritualism,  206;  sub- 
conscious action  and  secondary 
personality,  246  et  seq.;  in- 
fluences which  make  for  cautious- 
ness  in   thinking,    387    et   seq.; 


4^4 


INDEX 


morbid,  406;    shows  function  of 
mind  to  mould  impressions,  407. 
Psychopathology,    may    revolution- 
ize psychology,  8. 

Realism,   3. 

Redintegration,  the  law  of,  86;  its 
relation  to  dissociation.  111. 

Reincarnation,  recent  revival  of 
idea  of,  361;  ancient  belief  in, 
362  et  seq.;  consciousness  of 
identity  a  necessity  of  personal 
immortality,  366  et  seq.;  mod- 
ern attempt  to  prove  evidence 
of,  369;  mnemonic  illusions 
often  mistaken  for  evidence  of, 
371  et  seq.;  practically  impossi- 
ble to  secure  evidence  of,  378; 
clairvoyant  perception  may  be 
mistaken  for,  380;  a  mongrel 
modern  conception  of,  381  et 
seq.;  not  the  most  rational  view 
of   the   cosmic   order,    384. 

Richter,  H.  E.,  cited,  168. 

Salpetriere,  case  of  patient  at  the. 

Secondary  Personality,  its  relation 
to   psychology,    13;     general   and 
psychological   definitions   of   per- 
sonality,   246    et   seq.;   definition 
of,  249;    subconscious  activity  in 
memory,    253;     sometimes    simu- 
lates    spiritistic     communication, 
261;    cases  of:    (a)  Prof.  Janet's 
account    of  triple   personality  of 
Madame    B.,    261    et    seq.;    (b) 
Ansel   Bourne  case,   269  et  seq. 
{see  also   122);     (c)   Miss  Beau- 
champ  s  case  of  multiple  person- 
ality, 274  et  seq.;   (d)   "  Clelia," 
automatic      writing,      285;      (e) 
Mile.     Helene     Smith,     "From 
India  to  the  Planet  Mars,"  286; 
not    spiritistic    phenomena,    268; 
claiming    to    be    transcendental, 
285. 
Sense-perception,  sensation  defined, 
16;   theories  of   Empedocles  and 
Democritus,     18,    19;    theory    of 
Aristotle,  20;  scientific  study  of, 
22    et   seq.;   apparent    source    of 
sensation,  27;  experiment  in  vis- 
ual,   32;    not   the    whole    of    our 
mental   phenomena,   43;    relation 
of  judgment  to,  45  et  seq.;  illu- 
sion   and    external    causality,    66 
et    seq.;    errors     of     the    naive 
mind    regarding,    393. 
Sidgwick,  Mrs.,  cited,  239 


Seybert  Commission,  its  "  Report " 

cited,  204. 
Sidis,    Dr.    Boris,    cited,    83,    125. 
126,  257,  258,  348,  350,  351,  354. 
Slade,  Henry,  233  et  seq. 
Slate-writing,  209-213;  examples  of 
illusions    in,    225    et    seq.;    Mr. 
Davey's,  242. 
Socrates,  believed  in  reincarnation. 
362.  ' 

Solipsism,    394. 

Somnambulism,  a  form  of  hypno- 
sis, 340. 
Soul,  its  survival  after  death,  299 
et   seq.;   views   of   ancient    phil- 
osophers     on,      300-303;       early 
9«T'l«i?"  .  teachings      regarding, 
302-307;     immortality  of,    306  et 
seq.;    arguments    of    materialists 
against    immortality    of,    306    et 
seq.;   confusion    in    modern    use 
of  term,    382. 
Spiritualism,   its  broader  meaning, 
^22'    'tf  relation  to  Christianity, 
200;     Kant    responsible    for    the 
narrow      conception      of,      202; 
Swedenborg's       conception       of, 
202;    the  Fox  sisters,   203,   204; 
Report   of  the   Seybert   Commis- 
sion, 204;    Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  204;    physical  and  psy- 
chological   phenomena    of,    206; 
two    types    to    be    kept    distinct 
from  each  other,  206;    two  types 
of     physical     phenomena,     207; 
et   seq.;    views    of    ancient    phil- 
aJity,  274  et  seq.;   (d)   "Clelia," 
slate-writing,   209-213;     material- 
izations,   214;     necessary   qualifi- 
cations for  testimony  as  to  phe- 
nomena,  216-218;     danger  of  il- 
lusion   in    investigation    of    phe- 
nomena,  218   ef  seq.;  article  by 
Mrs.    Sidgwick  cited,   239;     con- 
troversy     between      materialism 
and,  299;    caution  against  follies 
of  modern,  416. 
Stoicism,  419. 

Subconscious  Action,  in  memory, 
253;  illustrations  of,  254;  dis- 
sociation in  abnormal  phenom- 
ena, 256;  under  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, 257,  258;  in  hysteria, 
259.  See  also  Secondary  Per- 
sonality. 
Subliminal  action.  See  Subcon- 
scious Action  and  Secondary 
Personality. 
Supersensible  world,  its  existence 
shown,   395   et  seq. 


INDEX 


n5 


Suggestion,  its  application  to  thera* 

peutics,  11. 
Sully,  quoted,  131,  148. 
Swedenborg,  202,  203. 

Telepathy,  defined,  189;  halluci- 
natory influences  in,  190;  its 
relation  to  apparitions,  191,  193. 

Tertullian,   302. 

Truesdell's  "  Bottom  Facts  Con- 
cerning Spiritualism,"  cited,  205. 


Tuckey,  cited,  347. 

Tuke,  Dr.  Hack,  cited,  323. 

Wetterstrand,   cited,   347. 
White,  Dr.,  cited,  258. 
Wilson,  Dr.  Albert,  cited,  126. 
Wordsworth,   quoted,   385,   386. 

Zander,  cited,   167. 
Zollner,   Prof.,  case  of  cord-tying, 
232  et  seq. 


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